I do not know what time I got to bed. I remember undressing, putting on

a bathrobe, and standing out on the balcony. I knew I was quite drunk,

and when I came in I put on the light over the head of the bed and

started to read. I was reading a book by Turgenieff. Probably I read the

same two pages over several times. It was one of the stories in “A

Sportsman’s Sketches.” I had read it before, but it seemed quite new.

The country became very clear and the feeling of pressure in my head

seemed to loosen. I was very drunk and I did not want to shut my eyes

because the room would go round and round. If I kept on reading that

feeling would pass.

I heard Brett and Robert Cohn come up the stairs. Cohn said good night

outside the door and went on up to his room. I heard Brett go into the

room next door. Mike was already in bed. He had come in with me an hour

before. He woke as she came in, and they talked together. I heard them

laugh. I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep. It was not

necessary to read any more. I could shut my eyes without getting the

wheeling sensation. But I could not sleep. There is no reason why

because it is dark you should look at things differently from when it is

light. The hell there isn’t!

I figured that all out once, and for six months I never slept with the

electric light off. That was another bright idea. To hell with women,

anyway. To hell with you, Brett Ashley.

Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you

had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been

having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it.

I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the

presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the

swell things you could count on.

I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays

and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values.

You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for

something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my

way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either

you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances,

or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money’s worth and

knowing when you had it. You could get your money’s worth. The world was

a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years,

I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies

I’ve had.

Perhaps that wasn’t true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did

learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to

know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you

learned from that what it was all about.

I wished Mike would not behave so terribly to Cohn, though. Mike was a

bad drunk. Brett was a good drunk. Bill was a good drunk. Cohn was never

drunk. Mike was unpleasant after he passed a certain point. I liked to

see him hurt Cohn. I wished he would not do it, though, because

afterward it made me disgusted at myself. That was morality; things that

made you disgusted afterward. No, that must be immorality. That was a

large statement. What a lot of bilge I could think up at night. What

rot, I could hear Brett say it. What rot! When you were with English you

got into the habit of using English expressions in your thinking. The

English spoken language—the upper classes, anyway—must have fewer

words than the Eskimo. Of course I didn’t know anything about the

Eskimo. Maybe the Eskimo was a fine language. Say the Cherokee. I didn’t

know anything about the Cherokee, either. The English talked with

inflected phrases. One phrase to mean everything. I liked them, though.

I liked the way they talked. Take Harris. Still Harris was not the upper

classes.

I turned on the light again and read. I read the Turgenieff. I knew that

now, reading it in the oversensitized state of my mind after much too

much brandy, I would remember it somewhere, and afterward it would seem

as though it had really happened to me. I would always have it. That was

another good thing you paid for and then had. Some time along toward

daylight I went to sleep.

* * * * *

The next two days in Pamplona were quiet, and there were no more rows.

The town was getting ready for the fiesta. Workmen put up the gate-posts

that were to shut off the side streets when the bulls were released from

the corrals and came running through the streets in the morning on their

way to the ring. The workmen dug holes and fitted in the timbers, each

timber numbered for its regular place. Out on the plateau beyond the

town employees of the bull-ring exercised picador horses, galloping them

stiff-legged on the hard, sun-baked fields behind the bull-ring. The big

gate of the bull-ring was open, and inside the amphitheatre was being

swept. The ring was rolled and sprinkled, and carpenters replaced

weakened or cracked planks in the barrera. Standing at the edge of the

smooth rolled sand you could look up in the empty stands and see old

women sweeping out the boxes.

Outside, the fence that led from the last street of the town to the

entrance of the bull-ring was already in place and made a long pen; the

crowd would come running down with the bulls behind them on the morning

of the day of the first bull-fight. Out across the plain, where the

horse and cattle fair would be, some gypsies had camped under the trees.

The wine and aguardiente sellers were putting up their booths. One booth

advertised =ANIS DEL TORO=. The cloth sign hung against the

planks in the hot sun. In the big square that was the centre of the town

there was no change yet. We sat in the white wicker chairs on the

terrasse of the café and watched the motor-buses come in and unload

peasants from the country coming in to the market, and we watched the

buses fill up and start out with peasants sitting with their saddle-bags

full of the things they had bought in the town. The tall gray

motor-buses were the only life of the square except for the pigeons and

the man with a hose who sprinkled the gravelled square and watered the

streets.

In the evening was the paseo. For an hour after dinner every one, all

the good-looking girls, the officers from the garrison, all the

fashionable people of the town, walked in the street on one side of the

square while the café tables filled with the regular after-dinner crowd.

During the morning I usually sat in the café and read the Madrid papers

and then walked in the town or out into the country. Sometimes Bill went

along. Sometimes he wrote in his room. Robert Cohn spent the mornings

studying Spanish or trying to get a shave at the barber-shop. Brett and

Mike never got up until noon. We all had a vermouth at the café. It was

a quiet life and no one was drunk. I went to church a couple of times,

once with Brett. She said she wanted to hear me go to confession, but I

told her that not only was it impossible but it was not as interesting

as it sounded, and, besides, it would be in a language she did not know.

We met Cohn as we came out of church, and although it was obvious he had

followed us, yet he was very pleasant and nice, and we all three went

for a walk out to the gypsy camp, and Brett had her fortune told.

It was a good morning, there were high white clouds above the mountains.

It had rained a little in the night and it was fresh and cool on the

plateau, and there was a wonderful view. We all felt good and we felt

healthy, and I felt quite friendly to Cohn. You could not be upset about

anything on a day like that.

That was the last day before the fiesta.

CHAPTER

15

At noon of Sunday, the 6th of July, the fiesta exploded. There is no

other way to describe it. People had been coming in all day from the

country, but they were assimilated in the town and you did not notice

them. The square was as quiet in the hot sun as on any other day. The

peasants were in the outlying wine-shops. There they were drinking,

getting ready for the fiesta. They had come in so recently from the

plains and the hills that it was necessary that they make their shifting

in values gradually. They could not start in paying café prices. They

got their money’s worth in the wine-shops. Money still had a definite

value in hours worked and bushels of grain sold. Late in the fiesta it

would not matter what they paid, nor where they bought.

Now on the day of the starting of the fiesta of San Fermin they had been

in the wine-shops of the narrow streets of the town since early morning.

Going down the streets in the morning on the way to mass in the

cathedral, I heard them singing through the open doors of the shops.

They were warming up. There were many people at the eleven o’clock mass.

San Fermin is also a religious festival.

I walked down the hill from the cathedral and up the street to the café

on the square. It was a little before noon. Robert Cohn and Bill were

sitting at one of the tables. The marble-topped tables and the white

wicker chairs were gone. They were replaced by cast-iron tables and

severe folding chairs. The café was like a battleship stripped for

action. To-day the waiters did not leave you alone all morning to read

without asking if you wanted to order something. A waiter came up as

soon as I sat down.

“What are you drinking?” I asked Bill and Robert.

“Sherry,” Cohn said.

“Jerez,” I said to the waiter.

Before the waiter brought the sherry the rocket that announced the

fiesta went up in the square. It burst and there was a gray ball of

smoke high up above the Theatre Gayarre, across on the other side of the

plaza. The ball of smoke hung in the sky like a shrapnel burst, and as I

watched, another rocket came up to it, trickling smoke in the bright

sunlight. I saw the bright flash as it burst and another little cloud of

smoke appeared. By the time the second rocket had burst there were so

many people in the arcade, that had been empty a minute before, that the

waiter, holding the bottle high up over his head, could hardly get

through the crowd to our table. People were coming into the square from

all sides, and down the street we heard the pipes and the fifes and the

drums coming. They were playing the _riau-riau_ music, the pipes shrill

and the drums pounding, and behind them came the men and boys dancing.

When the fifers stopped they all crouched down in the street, and when

the reed-pipes and the fifes shrilled, and the flat, dry, hollow drums

tapped it out again, they all went up in the air dancing. In the crowd

you saw only the heads and shoulders of the dancers going up and down.

In the square a man, bent over, was playing on a reed-pipe, and a crowd

of children were following him shouting, and pulling at his clothes. He

came out of the square, the children following him, and piped them past

the café and down a side street. We saw his blank pockmarked face as he

went by, piping, the children close behind him shouting and pulling at

him.

“He must be the village idiot,” Bill said. “My God! look at that!”

Down the street came dancers. The street was solid with dancers, all

men. They were all dancing in time behind their own fifers and drummers.

They were a club of some sort, and all wore workmen’s blue smocks, and

red handkerchiefs around their necks, and carried a great banner on two

poles. The banner danced up and down with them as they came down

surrounded by the crowd.

“Hurray for Wine! Hurray for the Foreigners!” was painted on the banner.

“Where are the foreigners?” Robert Cohn asked.

“We’re the foreigners,” Bill said.

All the time rockets were going up. The café tables were all full now.

The square was emptying of people and the crowd was filling the cafés.

“Where’s Brett and Mike?” Bill asked.

“I’ll go and get them,” Cohn said.

“Bring them here.”

The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days.

The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things

that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything

became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have

any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during

the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had the feeling, even when it was

quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the

same feeling about any action. It was a fiesta and it went on for seven

days.

That afternoon was the big religious procession. San Fermin was

translated from one church to another. In the procession were all the

dignitaries, civil and religious. We could not see them because the

crowd was too great. Ahead of the formal procession and behind it danced

the _riau-riau_ dancers. There was one mass of yellow shirts dancing up

and down in the crowd. All we could see of the procession through the

closely pressed people that crowded all the side streets and curbs were

the great giants, cigar-store Indians, thirty feet high, Moors, a King

and Queen, whirling and waltzing solemnly to the _riau-riau_.

They were all standing outside the chapel where San Fermin and the

dignitaries had passed in, leaving a guard of soldiers, the giants, with

the men who danced in them standing beside their resting frames, and the

dwarfs moving with their whacking bladders through the crowd. We started

inside and there was a smell of incense and people filing back into the

church, but Brett was stopped just inside the door because she had no

hat, so we went out again and along the street that ran back from the

chapel into town. The street was lined on both sides with people keeping

their place at the curb for the return of the procession. Some dancers

formed a circle around Brett and started to dance. They wore big wreaths

of white garlics around their necks. They took Bill and me by the arms

and put us in the circle. Bill started to dance, too. They were all

chanting. Brett wanted to dance but they did not want her to. They

wanted her as an image to dance around. When the song ended with the

sharp _riau-riau!_ they rushed us into a wine-shop.

We stood at the counter. They had Brett seated on a wine-cask. It was

dark in the wine-shop and full of men singing, hard-voiced singing. Back

of the counter they drew the wine from casks. I put down money for the

wine, but one of the men picked it up and put it back in my pocket.

“I want a leather wine-bottle,” Bill said.

“There’s a place down the street,” I said. “I’ll go get a couple.”

The dancers did not want me to go out. Three of them were sitting on the

high wine-cask beside Brett, teaching her to drink out of the

wine-skins. They had hung a wreath of garlics around her neck. Some one

insisted on giving her a glass. Somebody was teaching Bill a song.

Singing it into his ear. Beating time on Bill’s back.

I explained to them that I would be back. Outside in the street I went

down the street looking for the shop that made leather wine-bottles. The

crowd was packed on the sidewalks and many of the shops were shuttered,

and I could not find it. I walked as far as the church, looking on both

sides of the street. Then I asked a man and he took me by the arm and

led me to it. The shutters were up but the door was open.

Inside it smelled of fresh tanned leather and hot tar. A man was

stencilling completed wine-skins. They hung from the roof in bunches. He

took one down, blew it up, screwed the nozzle tight, and then jumped on

it

“See! It doesn’t leak.”

“I want another one, too. A big one.”

He took down a big one that would hold a gallon or more, from the roof.

He blew it up, his cheeks puffing ahead of the wine-skin, and stood on

the bota holding on to a chair.

“What are you going to do? Sell them in Bayonne?”

“No. Drink out of them.”

He slapped me on the back.

“Good man. Eight pesetas for the two. The lowest price.”

The man who was stencilling the new ones and tossing them into a pile

stopped.

“It’s true,” he said. “Eight pesetas is cheap.”

I paid and went out and along the street back to the wine-shop. It was

darker than ever inside and very crowded. I did not see Brett and Bill,

and some one said they were in the back room. At the counter the girl

filled the two wine-skins for me. One held two litres. The other held

five litres. Filling them both cost three pesetas sixty centimos. Some

one at the counter, that I had never seen before, tried to pay for the

wine, but I finally paid for it myself. The man who had wanted to pay

then bought me a drink. He would not let me buy one in return, but said

he would take a rinse of the mouth from the new wine-bag. He tipped the

big five-litre bag up and squeezed it so the wine hissed against the

back of his throat.

“All right,” he said, and handed back the bag.

In the back room Brett and Bill were sitting on barrels surrounded by

the dancers. Everybody had his arms on everybody else’s shoulders, and

they were all singing. Mike was sitting at a table with several men in

their shirt-sleeves, eating from a bowl of tuna fish, chopped onions and

vinegar. They were all drinking wine and mopping up the oil and vinegar

with pieces of bread.

“Hello, Jake. Hello!” Mike called. “Come here. I want you to meet my

friends. We’re all having an hors-d’œuvre.”

I was introduced to the people at the table. They supplied their names

to Mike and sent for a fork for me.

“Stop eating their dinner, Michael,” Brett shouted from the

wine-barrels.

“I don’t want to eat up your meal,” I said when some one handed me a

fork.

“Eat,” he said. “What do you think it’s here for?”

I unscrewed the nozzle of the big wine-bottle and handed it around.

Every one took a drink, tipping the wine-skin at arm’s length.

Outside, above the singing, we could hear the music of the procession

going by.

“Isn’t that the procession?” Mike asked.

“Nada,” some one said. “It’s nothing. Drink up. Lift the bottle.”

“Where did they find you?” I asked Mike.

“Some one brought me here,” Mike said. “They said you were here.”

“Where’s Cohn?”

“He’s passed out,” Brett called. “They’ve put him away somewhere.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“How should we know,” Bill said. “I think he’s dead.”

“He’s not dead,” Mike said. “I know he’s not dead. He’s just passed out

on Anis del Mono.”

As he said Anis del Mono one of the men at the table looked up, brought

out a bottle from inside his smock, and handed it to me.

“No,” I said. “No, thanks!”

“Yes. Yes. Arriba! Up with the bottle!”

I took a drink. It tasted of licorice and warmed all the way. I could

feel it warming in my stomach.

“Where the hell is Cohn?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I’ll ask. Where is the drunken comrade?” he

asked in Spanish.

“You want to see him?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Not me,” said Mike. “This gent.”

The Anis del Mono man wiped his mouth and stood up.

“Come on.”

In a back room Robert Cohn was sleeping quietly on some wine-casks. It

was almost too dark to see his face. They had covered him with a coat

and another coat was folded under his head. Around his neck and on his

chest was a big wreath of twisted garlics.

“Let him sleep,” the man whispered. “He’s all right.”

Two hours later Cohn appeared. He came into the front room still with

the wreath of garlics around his neck. The Spaniards shouted when he

came in. Cohn wiped his eyes and grinned.

“I must have been sleeping,” he said.

“Oh, not at all,” Brett said.

“You were only dead,” Bill said.

“Aren’t we going to go and have some supper?” Cohn asked.

“Do you want to eat?”

“Yes. Why not? I’m hungry.”

“Eat those garlics, Robert,” Mike said. “I say. Do eat those garlics.”

Cohn stood there. His sleep had made him quite all right.

“Do let’s go and eat,” Brett said. “I must get a bath.”

“Come on,” Bill said. “Let’s translate Brett to the hotel.”

We said good-bye to many people and shook hands with many people and

went out. Outside it was dark.

“What time is it do you suppose?” Cohn asked.

“It’s to-morrow,” Mike said. “You’ve been asleep two days.”

“No,” said Cohn, “what time is it?”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“What a lot we’ve drunk.”

“You mean what a lot _we’ve_ drunk. You went to sleep.”

Going down the dark streets to the hotel we saw the sky-rockets going up

in the square. Down the side streets that led to the square we saw the

square solid with people, those in the centre all dancing.

It was a big meal at the hotel. It was the first meal of the prices

being doubled for the fiesta, and there were several new courses. After

the dinner we were out in the town. I remember resolving that I would

stay up all night to watch the bulls go through the streets at six

o’clock in the morning, and being so sleepy that I went to bed around

four o’clock. The others stayed up.

My own room was locked and I could not find the key, so I went up-stairs

and slept on one of the beds in Cohn’s room. The fiesta was going on

outside in the night, but I was too sleepy for it to keep me awake. When

I woke it was the sound of the rocket exploding that announced the

release of the bulls from the corrals at the edge of town. They would

race through the streets and out to the bull-ring. I had been sleeping

heavily and I woke feeling I was too late. I put on a coat of Cohn’s and

went out on the balcony. Down below the narrow street was empty. All the

balconies were crowded with people. Suddenly a crowd came down the

street. They were all running, packed close together. They passed along

and up the street toward the bull-ring and behind them came more men

running faster, and then some stragglers who were really running. Behind

them was a little bare space, and then the bulls galloping, tossing

their heads up and down. It all went out of sight around the corner. One

man fell, rolled to the gutter, and lay quiet. But the bulls went right

on and did not notice him. They were all running together.

After they went out of sight a great roar came from the bull-ring. It

kept on. Then finally the pop of the rocket that meant the bulls had

gotten through the people in the ring and into the corrals. I went back

in the room and got into bed. I had been standing on the stone balcony

in bare feet. I knew our crowd must have all been out at the bull-ring.

Back in bed, I went to sleep.

Cohn woke me when he came in. He started to undress and went over and

closed the window because the people on the balcony of the house just

across the street were looking in.

“Did you see the show?” I asked.

“Yes. We were all there.”

“Anybody get hurt?”

“One of the bulls got into the crowd in the ring and tossed six or eight

people.”

“How did Brett like it?”

“It was all so sudden there wasn’t any time for it to bother anybody.”

“I wish I’d been up.”

“We didn’t know where you were. We went to your room but it was locked.”

“Where did you stay up?”

“We danced at some club.”

“I got sleepy,” I said.

“My gosh! I’m sleepy now,” Cohn said. “Doesn’t this thing ever stop?”

“Not for a week.”

Bill opened the door and put his head in.

“Where were you, Jake?”

“I saw them go through from the balcony. How was it?”

“Grand.”

“Where you going?”

“To sleep.”

No one was up before noon. We ate at tables set out under the arcade.

The town was full of people. We had to wait for a table. After lunch we

went over to the Iruña. It had filled up, and as the time for the

bull-fight came it got fuller, and the tables were crowded closer. There

was a close, crowded hum that came every day before the bull-fight. The

café did not make this same noise at any other time, no matter how

crowded it was. This hum went on, and we were in it and a part of it.

I had taken six seats for all the fights. Three of them were barreras,

the first row at the ring-side, and three were sobrepuertos, seats with

wooden backs, half-way up the amphitheatre. Mike thought Brett had best

sit high up for her first time, and Cohn wanted to sit with them. Bill

and I were going to sit in the barreras, and I gave the extra ticket to

a waiter to sell. Bill said something to Cohn about what to do and how

to look so he would not mind the horses. Bill had seen one season of

bull-fights.

“I’m not worried about how I’ll stand it. I’m only afraid I may be

bored,” Cohn said.

“You think so?”

“Don’t look at the horses, after the bull hits them,” I said to Brett.

“Watch the charge and see the picador try and keep the bull off, but

then don’t look again until the horse is dead if it’s been hit.”

“I’m a little nervy about it,” Brett said. “I’m worried whether I’ll be

able to go through with it all right.”

“You’ll be all right. There’s nothing but that horse part that will

bother you, and they’re only in for a few minutes with each bull. Just

don’t watch when it’s bad.”

“She’ll be all right,” Mike said. “I’ll look after her.”

“I don’t think you’ll be bored,” Bill said.

“I’m going over to the hotel to get the glasses and the wine-skin,” I

said. “See you back here. Don’t get cock-eyed.”

“I’ll come along,” Bill said. Brett smiled at us.

We walked around through the arcade to avoid the heat of the square.

“That Cohn gets me,” Bill said. “He’s got this Jewish superiority so

strong that he thinks the only emotion he’ll get out of the fight will

be being bored.”

“We’ll watch him with the glasses,” I said.

“Oh, to hell with him!”

“He spends a lot of time there.”

“I want him to stay there.”

In the hotel on the stairs we met Montoya.

“Come on,” said Montoya. “Do you want to meet Pedro Romero?”

“Fine,” said Bill. “Let’s go see him.”

We followed Montoya up a flight and down the corridor.

“He’s in room number eight,” Montoya explained. “He’s getting dressed

for the bull-fight.”

Montoya knocked on the door and opened it. It was a gloomy room with a

little light coming in from the window on the narrow street. There were

two beds separated by a monastic partition. The electric light was on.

The boy stood very straight and unsmiling in his bull-fighting clothes.

His jacket hung over the back of a chair. They were just finishing

winding his sash. His black hair shone under the electric light. He wore

a white linen shirt and the sword-handler finished his sash and stood up

and stepped back. Pedro Romero nodded, seeming very far away and

dignified when we shook hands. Montoya said something about what great

aficionados we were, and that we wanted to wish him luck. Romero

listened very seriously. Then he turned to me. He was the best-looking

boy I have ever seen.

“You go to the bull-fight,” he said in English.

“You know English,” I said, feeling like an idiot.

“No,” he answered, and smiled.

One of three men who had been sitting on the beds came up and asked us

if we spoke French. “Would you like me to interpret for you? Is there

anything you would like to ask Pedro Romero?”

We thanked him. What was there that you would like to ask? The boy was

nineteen years old, alone except for his sword-handler, and the three

hangers-on, and the bull-fight was to commence in twenty minutes. We

wished him “Mucha suerte,” shook hands, and went out. He was standing,

straight and handsome and altogether by himself, alone in the room with

the hangers-on as we shut the door.

“He’s a fine boy, don’t you think so?” Montoya asked.

“He’s a good-looking kid,” I said.

“He looks like a torero,” Montoya said. “He has the type.”

“He’s a fine boy.”

“We’ll see how he is in the ring,” Montoya said.

We found the big leather wine-bottle leaning against the wall in my

room, took it and the field-glasses, locked the door, and went

down-stairs.

It was a good bull-fight. Bill and I were very excited about Pedro

Romero. Montoya was sitting about ten places away. After Romero had

killed his first bull Montoya caught my eye and nodded his head. This

was a real one. There had not been a real one for a long time. Of the

other two matadors, one was very fair and the other was passable. But

there was no comparison with Romero, although neither of his bulls was

much.

Several times during the bull-fight I looked up at Mike and Brett and

Cohn, with the glasses. They seemed to be all right. Brett did not look

upset. All three were leaning forward on the concrete railing in front

of them.

“Let me take the glasses,” Bill said.

“Does Cohn look bored?” I asked.

“That kike!”

Outside the ring, after the bull-fight was over, you could not move in

the crowd. We could not make our way through but had to be moved with

the whole thing, slowly, as a glacier, back to town. We had that

disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and

the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight. The fiesta

was going on. The drums pounded and the pipe music was shrill, and

everywhere the flow of the crowd was broken by patches of dancers. The

dancers were in a crowd, so you did not see the intricate play of the

feet. All you saw was the heads and shoulders going up and down, up and

down. Finally, we got out of the crowd and made for the café. The waiter

saved chairs for the others, and we each ordered an absinthe and watched

the crowd in the square and the dancers.

“What do you suppose that dance is?” Bill asked.

“It’s a sort of jota.”

“They’re not all the same,” Bill said. “They dance differently to all

the different tunes.”

“It’s swell dancing.”

In front of us on a clear part of the street a company of boys were

dancing. The steps were very intricate and their faces were intent and

concentrated. They all looked down while they danced. Their rope-soled

shoes tapped and spatted on the pavement. The toes touched. The heels

touched. The balls of the feet touched. Then the music broke wildly and

the step was finished and they were all dancing on up the street.

“Here come the gentry,” Bill said.

They were crossing the street

“Hello, men,” I said.

“Hello, gents!” said Brett. “You saved us seats? How nice.”

“I say,” Mike said, “that Romero what’shisname is somebody. Am I wrong?”

“Oh, isn’t he lovely,” Brett said. “And those green trousers.”

“Brett never took her eyes off them.”

“I say, I must borrow your glasses to-morrow.”

“How did it go?”

“Wonderfully! Simply perfect. I say, it is a spectacle!”

“How about the horses?”

“I couldn’t help looking at them.”

“She couldn’t take her eyes off them,” Mike said. “She’s an

extraordinary wench.”

“They do have some rather awful things happen to them,” Brett said. “I

couldn’t look away, though.”

“Did you feel all right?”

“I didn’t feel badly at all.”

“Robert Cohn did,” Mike put in. “You were quite green, Robert.”

“The first horse did bother me,” Cohn said.

“You weren’t bored, were you?” asked Bill.

Cohn laughed.

“No. I wasn’t bored. I wish you’d forgive me that.”

“It’s all right,” Bill said, “so long as you weren’t bored.”

“He didn’t look bored,” Mike said. “I thought he was going to be sick.”

“I never felt that bad. It was just for a minute.”

“I thought he was going to be sick. You weren’t bored, were you,

Robert?”

“Let up on that, Mike. I said I was sorry I said it.”

“He was, you know. He was positively green.”

“Oh, shove it along, Michael.”

“You mustn’t ever get bored at your first bull-fight, Robert,” Mike

said. “It might make such a mess.”

“Oh, shove it along, Michael,” Brett said.

“He said Brett was a sadist,” Mike said. “Brett’s not a sadist. She’s

just a lovely, healthy wench.”

“Are you a sadist, Brett?” I asked.

“Hope not.”

“He said Brett was a sadist just because she has a good, healthy

stomach.”

“Won’t be healthy long.”

Bill got Mike started on something else than Cohn. The waiter brought

the absinthe glasses.

“Did you really like it?” Bill asked Cohn.

“No, I can’t say I liked it. I think it’s a wonderful show.”

“Gad, yes! What a spectacle!” Brett said.

“I wish they didn’t have the horse part,” Cohn said.

“They’re not important,” Bill said. “After a while you never notice

anything disgusting.”

“It is a bit strong just at the start,” Brett said. “There’s a dreadful

moment for me just when the bull starts for the horse.”

“The bulls were fine,” Cohn said.

“They were very good,” Mike said.

“I want to sit down below, next time.” Brett drank from her glass of

absinthe.

“She wants to see the bull-fighters close by,” Mike said.

“They are something,” Brett said. “That Romero lad is just a child.”

“He’s a damned good-looking boy,” I said. “When we were up in his room I

never saw a better-looking kid.”

“How old do you suppose he is?”

“Nineteen or twenty.”

“Just imagine it.”

The bull-fight on the second day was much better than on the first.

Brett sat between Mike and me at the barrera, and Bill and Cohn went up

above. Romero was the whole show. I do not think Brett saw any other

bull-fighter. No one else did either, except the hard-shelled

technicians. It was all Romero. There were two other matadors, but they

did not count. I sat beside Brett and explained to Brett what it was all

about. I told her about watching the bull, not the horse, when the bulls

charged the picadors, and got her to watching the picador place the

point of his pic so that she saw what it was all about, so that it

became more something that was going on with a definite end, and less of

a spectacle with unexplained horrors. I had her watch how Romero took

the bull away from a fallen horse with his cape, and how he held him

with the cape and turned him, smoothly and suavely, never wasting the

bull. She saw how Romero avoided every brusque movement and saved his

bulls for the last when he wanted them, not winded and discomposed but

smoothly worn down. She saw how close Romero always worked to the bull,

and I pointed out to her the tricks the other bull-fighters used to make

it look as though they were working closely. She saw why she liked

Romero’s cape-work and why she did not like the others.

Romero never made any contortions, always it was straight and pure and

natural in line. The others twisted themselves like corkscrews, their

elbows raised, and leaned against the flanks of the bull after his horns

had passed, to give a faked look of danger. Afterward, all that was

faked turned bad and gave an unpleasant feeling. Romero’s bull-fighting

gave real emotion, because he kept the absolute purity of line in his

movements and always quietly and calmly let the horns pass him close

each time. He did not have to emphasize their closeness. Brett saw how

something that was beautiful done close to the bull was ridiculous if it

were done a little way off. I told her how since the death of Joselito

all the bull-fighters had been developing a technic that simulated this

appearance of danger in order to give a fake emotional feeling, while

the bull-fighter was really safe. Romero had the old thing, the holding

of his purity of line through the maximum of exposure, while he

dominated the bull by making him realize he was unattainable, while he

prepared him for the killing.

“I’ve never seen him do an awkward thing,” Brett said.

“You won’t until he gets frightened,” I said.

“He’ll never be frightened,” Mike said. “He knows too damned much.”

“He knew everything when he started. The others can’t ever learn what he

was born with.”

“And God, what looks,” Brett said.

“I believe, you know, that she’s falling in love with this bull-fighter

chap,” Mike said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Be a good chap, Jake. Don’t tell her anything more about him. Tell her

how they beat their old mothers.”

“Tell me what drunks they are.”

“Oh, frightful,” Mike said. “Drunk all day and spend all their time

beating their poor old mothers.”

“He looks that way,” Brett said.

“Doesn’t he?” I said.

They had hitched the mules to the dead bull and then the whips cracked,

the men ran, and the mules, straining forward, their legs pushing, broke

into a gallop, and the bull, one horn up, his head on its side, swept a

swath smoothly across the sand and out the red gate.

“This next is the last one.”

“Not really,” Brett said. She leaned forward on the barrera. Romero

waved his picadors to their places, then stood, his cape against his

chest, looking across the ring to where the bull would come out.

After it was over we went out and were pressed tight in the crowd.

“These bull-fights are hell on one,” Brett said. “I’m limp as a rag.”

“Oh, you’ll get a drink,” Mike said.

The next day Pedro Romero did not fight. It was Miura bulls, and a very

bad bull-fight. The next day there was no bull-fight scheduled. But all

day and all night the fiesta kept on.

CHAPTER

16

In the morning it was raining. A fog had come over the mountains from

the sea. You could not see the tops of the mountains. The plateau was

dull and gloomy, and the shapes of the trees and the houses were

changed. I walked out beyond the town to look at the weather. The bad

weather was coming over the mountains from the sea.

The flags in the square hung wet from the white poles and the banners

were wet and hung damp against the front of the houses, and in between

the steady drizzle the rain came down and drove every one under the

arcades and made pools of water in the square, and the streets wet and

dark and deserted; yet the fiesta kept up without any pause. It was only

driven under cover.

The covered seats of the bull-ring had been crowded with people sitting

out of the rain watching the concourse of Basque and Navarrais dancers

and singers, and afterward the Val Carlos dancers in their costumes

danced down the street in the rain, the drums sounding hollow and damp,

and the chiefs of the bands riding ahead on their big, heavy-footed

horses, their costumes wet, the horses’ coats wet in the rain. The crowd

was in the cafés and the dancers came in, too, and sat, their

tight-wound white legs under the tables, shaking the water from their

belled caps, and spreading their red and purple jackets over the chairs

to dry. It was raining hard outside.

I left the crowd in the café and went over to the hotel to get shaved

for dinner. I was shaving in my room when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I called.

Montoya walked in.

“How are you?” he said.

“Fine,” I said.

“No bulls to-day.”

“No,” I said, “nothing but rain.”

“Where are your friends?”

“Over at the Iruña.”

Montoya smiled his embarrassed smile.

“Look,” he said. “Do you know the American ambassador?”

“Yes,” I said. “Everybody knows the American ambassador.”

“He’s here in town, now.”

“Yes,” I said. “Everybody’s seen them.”

“I’ve seen them, too,” Montoya said. He didn’t say anything. I went on

shaving.

“Sit down,” I said. “Let me send for a drink.”

“No, I have to go.”

I finished shaving and put my face down into the bowl and washed it with

cold water. Montoya was standing there looking more embarrassed.

“Look,” he said. “I’ve just had a message from them at the Grand Hotel

that they want Pedro Romero and Marcial Lalanda to come over for coffee

to-night after dinner.”

“Well,” I said, “it can’t hurt Marcial any.”

“Marcial has been in San Sebastian all day. He drove over in a car this

morning with Marquez. I don’t think they’ll be back to-night.”

Montoya stood embarrassed. He wanted me to say something.

“Don’t give Romero the message,” I said.

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

Montoya was very pleased.

“I wanted to ask you because you were an American,” he said.

“That’s what I’d do.”

“Look,” said Montoya. “People take a boy like that. They don’t know what

he’s worth. They don’t know what he means. Any foreigner can flatter

him. They start this Grand Hotel business, and in one year they’re

through.”

“Like Algabeno,” I said.

“Yes, like Algabeno.”

“They’re a fine lot,” I said. “There’s one American woman down here now

that collects bull-fighters.”

“I know. They only want the young ones.”

“Yes,” I said. “The old ones get fat.”

“Or crazy like Gallo.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s easy. All you have to do is not give him the

message.”

“He’s such a fine boy,” said Montoya. “He ought to stay with his own

people. He shouldn’t mix in that stuff.”

“Won’t you have a drink?” I asked.

“No,” said Montoya, “I have to go.” He went out.

I went down-stairs and out the door and took a walk around through the

arcades around the square. It was still raining. I looked in at the

Iruña for the gang and they were not there, so I walked on around the

square and back to the hotel. They were eating dinner in the down-stairs

dining-room.

They were well ahead of me and it was no use trying to catch them. Bill

was buying shoe-shines for Mike. Bootblacks opened the street door and

each one Bill called over and started to work on Mike.

“This is the eleventh time my boots have been polished,” Mike said. “I

say, Bill is an ass.”

The bootblacks had evidently spread the report. Another came in.

“Limpia botas?” he said to Bill.

“No,” said Bill. “For this Señor.”

The bootblack knelt down beside the one at work and started on Mike’s

free shoe that shone already in the electric light.

“Bill’s a yell of laughter,” Mike said.

I was drinking red wine, and so far behind them that I felt a little

uncomfortable about all this shoe-shining. I looked around the room. At

the next table was Pedro Romero. He stood up when I nodded, and asked me

to come over and meet a friend. His table was beside ours, almost

touching. I met the friend, a Madrid bull-fight critic, a little man

with a drawn face. I told Romero how much I liked his work, and he was

very pleased. We talked Spanish and the critic knew a little French. I

reached to our table for my wine-bottle, but the critic took my arm.

Romero laughed.

“Drink here,” he said in English.

He was very bashful about his English, but he was really very pleased

with it, and as we went on talking he brought out words he was not sure

of, and asked me about them. He was anxious to know the English for

_Corrida de toros_, the exact translation. Bull-fight he was suspicious

of. I explained that bull-fight in Spanish was the _lidia_ of a _toro_.

The Spanish word _corrida_ means in English the running of bulls—the

French translation is _Course de taureaux_. The critic put that in.

There is no Spanish word for bull-fight.

Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was

born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bull-fighting

in Malaga in the bull-fighting school there. He had only been at it

three years. The bull-fight critic joked him about the number of

_Malagueño_ expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His

older brother was with him as a banderillero, but he did not live in

this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked

for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I

told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to

explain after I had made the mistake.

“Where did you see me the other time? In Madrid?”

“Yes,” I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid

in the bull-fight papers, so I was all right.

“The first or the second time?”

“The first.”

“I was very bad,” he said. “The second time I was better. You remember?”

He turned to the critic.

He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something

altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly

about him.

“I like it very much that you like my work,” he said. “But you haven’t

seen it yet. To-morrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to

you.”

When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bull-fight critic

nor I would think he was boasting.

“I am anxious to see it,” the critic said. “I would like to be

convinced.”

“He doesn’t like my work much.” Romero turned to me. He was serious.

The critic explained that he liked it very much, but that so far it had

been incomplete.

“Wait till to-morrow, if a good one comes out.”

“Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?” the critic asked me.

“Yes. I saw them unloaded.”

Pedro Romero leaned forward.

“What did you think of them?”

“Very nice,” I said. “About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns.

Haven’t you seen them?”

“Oh, yes,” said Romero.

“They won’t weigh twenty-six arrobas,” said the critic.

“No,” said Romero.

“They’ve got bananas for horns,” the critic said.

“You call them bananas?” asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled.

“_You_ wouldn’t call them bananas?”

“No,” I said. “They’re horns all right.”

“They’re very short,” said Pedro Romero. “Very, very short. Still, they

aren’t bananas.”

“I say, Jake,” Brett called from the next table, “you _have_ deserted

us.”

“Just temporarily,” I said. “We’re talking bulls.”

“You _are_ superior.”

“Tell him that bulls have no balls,” Mike shouted. He was drunk.

Romero looked at me inquiringly.

“Drunk,” I said. “Borracho! Muy borracho!”

“You might introduce your friends,” Brett said. She had not stopped

looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee

with us. They both stood up. Romero’s face was very brown. He had very

nice manners.

I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was

not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to

have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for

everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking.

“Tell him I think writing is lousy,” Bill said. “Go on, tell him. Tell

him I’m ashamed of being a writer.”

Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her.

“Go on. Tell him!” Bill said.

Romero looked up smiling.

“This gentleman,” I said, “is a writer.”

Romero was impressed. “This other one, too,” I said, pointing at Cohn.

“He looks like Villalta,” Romero said, looking at Bill. “Rafael, doesn’t

he look like Villalta?”

“I can’t see it,” the critic said.

“Really,” Romero said in Spanish. “He looks a lot like Villalta. What

does the drunken one do?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that why he drinks?”

“No. He’s waiting to marry this lady.”

“Tell him bulls have no balls!” Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other

end of the table.

“What does he say?”

“He’s drunk.”

“Jake,” Mike called. “Tell him bulls have no balls!”

“You understand?” I said.

“Yes.”

I was sure he didn’t, so it was all right.

“Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants.”

“Pipe down, Mike.”

“Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants.”

“Pipe down.”

During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett

was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and

laughing.

Bill was filling the glasses.

“Tell him Brett wants to come into——”

“Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ’s sake!”

Romero looked up smiling. “Pipe down! I know that,” he said.

Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he

saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting

laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of

drunks. He did not even nod.

Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast.

“Let’s all drink to—” he began. “Pedro Romero,” I said. Everybody stood

up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it

down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear

that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off

all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with every one and he and the

critic went out together.

“My God! he’s a lovely boy,” Brett said. “And how I would love to see

him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn.”

“I started to tell him,” Mike began. “And Jake kept interrupting me. Why

do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?”

“Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you.”

“No, I’d like to get this settled.” He turned away from me. “Do you

think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among

us? People who are out to have a good time? For God’s sake don’t be so

noisy, Cohn!”

“Oh, cut it out, Mike,” Cohn said.

“Do you think Brett wants you here? Do you think you add to the party?

Why don’t you say something?”

“I said all I had to say the other night, Mike.”

“I’m not one of you literary chaps.” Mike stood shakily and leaned

against the table. “I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted.

Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for

God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don’t you think I’m right?”

He looked at us.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s all go over to the Iruña.”

“No. Don’t you think I’m right? I love that woman.”

“Oh, don’t start that again. Do shove it along, Michael,” Brett said.

“Don’t you think I’m right, Jake?”

Cohn still sat at the table. His face had the sallow, yellow look it got

when he was insulted, but somehow he seemed to be enjoying it. The

childish, drunken heroics of it. It was his affair with a lady of title.

“Jake,” Mike said. He was almost crying. “You know I’m right. Listen,

you!” He turned to Cohn: “Go away! Go away now!”

“But I won’t go, Mike,” said Cohn.

“Then I’ll make you!” Mike started toward him around the table. Cohn

stood up and took off his glasses. He stood waiting, his face sallow,

his hands fairly low, proudly and firmly waiting for the assault, ready

to do battle for his lady love.

I grabbed Mike. “Come on to the café,” I said. “You can’t hit him here

in the hotel.”

“Good!” said Mike. “Good idea!”

We started off. I looked back as Mike stumbled up the stairs and saw

Cohn putting his glasses on again. Bill was sitting at the table pouring

another glass of Fundador. Brett was sitting looking straight ahead at

nothing.

Outside on the square it had stopped raining and the moon was trying to

get through the clouds. There was a wind blowing. The military band was

playing and the crowd was massed on the far side of the square where the

fireworks specialist and his son were trying to send up fire balloons. A

balloon would start up jerkily, on a great bias, and be torn by the wind

or blown against the houses of the square. Some fell into the crowd. The

magnesium flared and the fireworks exploded and chased about in the

crowd. There was no one dancing in the square. The gravel was too wet.

Brett came out with Bill and joined us. We stood in the crowd and

watched Don Manuel Orquito, the fireworks king, standing on a little

platform, carefully starting the balloons with sticks, standing above

the heads of the crowd to launch the balloons off into the wind. The

wind brought them all down, and Don Manuel Orquito’s face was sweaty in

the light of his complicated fireworks that fell into the crowd and

charged and chased, sputtering and cracking, between the legs of the

people. The people shouted as each new luminous paper bubble careened,

caught fire, and fell.

“They’re razzing Don Manuel,” Bill said.

“How do you know he’s Don Manuel?” Brett said.

“His name’s on the programme. Don Manuel Orquito, the pirotecnico of

esta ciudad.”

“Globos illuminados,” Mike said. “A collection of globos illuminados.

That’s what the paper said.”

The wind blew the band music away.

“I say, I wish one would go up,” Brett said. “That Don Manuel chap is

furious.”

“He’s probably worked for weeks fixing them to go off, spelling out

‘Hail to San Fermin,’” Bill said.

“Globos illuminados,” Mike said. “A bunch of bloody globos illuminados.”

“Come on,” said Brett. “We can’t stand here.”

“Her ladyship wants a drink,” Mike said.

“How you know things,” Brett said.

Inside, the café was crowded and very noisy. No one noticed us come in.

We could not find a table. There was a great noise going on.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Bill said.

Outside the paseo was going in under the arcade. There were some English

and Americans from Biarritz in sport clothes scattered at the tables.

Some of the women stared at the people going by with lorgnons. We had

acquired, at some time, a friend of Bill’s from Biarritz. She was

staying with another girl at the Grand Hotel. The other girl had a

headache and had gone to bed.

“Here’s the pub,” Mike said. It was the Bar Milano, a small, tough bar

where you could get food and where they danced in the back room. We all

sat down at a table and ordered a bottle of Fundador. The bar was not

full. There was nothing going on.

“This is a hell of a place,” Bill said.

“It’s too early.”

“Let’s take the bottle and come back later,” Bill said. “I don’t want to

sit here on a night like this.”

“Let’s go and look at the English,” Mike said. “I love to look at the

English.”

“They’re awful,” Bill said. “Where did they all come from?”

“They come from Biarritz,” Mike said, “They come to see the last day of

the quaint little Spanish fiesta.”

“I’ll festa them,” Bill said.

“You’re an extraordinarily beautiful girl.” Mike turned to Bill’s

friend. “When did you come here?”

“Come off it, Michael.”

“I say, she _is_ a lovely girl. Where have I been? Where have I been

looking all this while? You’re a lovely thing. _Have_ we met? Come along

with me and Bill. We’re going to festa the English.”

“I’ll festa them,” Bill said, “What the hell are they doing at this

fiesta?”

“Come on,” Mike said. “Just us three. We’re going to festa the bloody

English. I hope you’re not English? I’m Scotch. I hate the English. I’m

going to festa them. Come on, Bill.”

Through the window we saw them, all three arm in arm, going toward the

café. Rockets were going up in the square.

“I’m going to sit here,” Brett said.

“I’ll stay with you,” Cohn said.

“Oh, don’t!” Brett said. “For God’s sake, go off somewhere. Can’t you

see Jake and I want to talk?”

“I didn’t,” Cohn said. “I thought I’d sit here because I felt a little

tight.”

“What a hell of a reason for sitting with any one. If you’re tight, go

to bed. Go on to bed.”

“Was I rude enough to him?” Brett asked. Cohn was gone. “My God! I’m so

sick of him!”

“He doesn’t add much to the gayety.”

“He depresses me so.”

“He’s behaved very badly.”

“Damned badly. He had a chance to behave so well.”

“He’s probably waiting just outside the door now.”

“Yes. He would. You know I do know how he feels. He can’t believe it

didn’t mean anything.”

“I know.”

“Nobody else would behave as badly. Oh, I’m so sick of the whole thing.

And Michael. Michael’s been lovely, too.”

“It’s been damned hard on Mike.”

“Yes. But he didn’t need to be a swine.”

“Everybody behaves badly,” I said. “Give them the proper chance.”

“You wouldn’t behave badly.” Brett looked at me.

“I’d be as big an ass as Cohn,” I said.

“Darling, don’t let’s talk a lot of rot.”

“All right. Talk about anything you like.”

“Don’t be difficult. You’re the only person I’ve got, and I feel rather

awful to-night.”

“You’ve got Mike.”

“Yes, Mike. Hasn’t he been pretty?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s been damned hard on Mike, having Cohn around and

seeing him with you.”

“Don’t I know it, darling? Please don’t make me feel any worse than I

do.”

Brett was nervous as I had never seen her before. She kept looking away

from me and looking ahead at the wall.

“Want to go for a walk?”

“Yes. Come on.”

I corked up the Fundador bottle and gave it to the bartender.

“Let’s have one more drink of that,” Brett said. “My nerves are rotten.”

We each drank a glass of the smooth amontillado brandy.

“Come on,” said Brett.

As we came out the door I saw Cohn walk out from under the arcade.

“He _was_ there,” Brett said.

“He can’t be away from you.”

“Poor devil!”

“I’m not sorry for him. I hate him, myself.”

“I hate him, too,” she shivered. “I hate his damned suffering.”

We walked arm in arm down the side street away from the crowd and the

lights of the square. The street was dark and wet, and we walked along

it to the fortifications at the edge of town. We passed wine-shops with

light coming out from their doors onto the black, wet street, and sudden

bursts of music.

“Want to go in?”

“No.”

We walked out across the wet grass and onto the stone wall of the

fortifications. I spread a newspaper on the stone and Brett sat down.

Across the plain it was dark, and we could see the mountains. The wind

was high up and took the clouds across the moon. Below us were the dark

pits of the fortifications. Behind were the trees and the shadow of the

cathedral, and the town silhouetted against the moon.

“Don’t feel bad,” I said.

“I feel like hell,” Brett said. “Don’t let’s talk.”

We looked out at the plain. The long lines of trees were dark in the

moonlight. There were the lights of a car on the road climbing the

mountain. Up on the top of the mountain we saw the lights of the fort.

Below to the left was the river. It was high from the rain, and black

and smooth. Trees were dark along the banks. We sat and looked out.

Brett stared straight ahead. Suddenly she shivered.

“It’s cold.”

“Want to walk back?”

“Through the park.”

We climbed down. It was clouding over again. In the park it was dark

under the trees.

“Do you still love me, Jake?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Because I’m a goner,” Brett said.

“How?”

“I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him, I

think.”

“I wouldn’t be if I were you.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a goner. It’s tearing me all up inside.”

“Don’t do it.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help anything.”

“You ought to stop it.”

“How can I stop it? I can’t stop things. Feel that?”

Her hand was trembling.

“I’m like that all through.”

“You oughtn’t to do it.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a goner now, anyway. Don’t you see the

difference?”

“No.”

“I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to do something I really want to do.

I’ve lost my self-respect.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh, darling, don’t be difficult. What do you think it’s meant to have

that damned Jew about, and Mike the way he’s acted?”

“Sure.”

“I can’t just stay tight all the time.”

“No.”

“Oh, darling, please stay by me. Please stay by me and see me through

this.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t say it’s right. It is right though for me. God knows, I’ve

never felt such a bitch.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come on,” Brett said. “Let’s go and find him.”

Together we walked down the gravel path in the park in the dark, under

the trees and then out from under the trees and past the gate into the

street that led into town.

Pedro Romero was in the café. He was at a table with other bull-fighters

and bull-fight critics. They were smoking cigars. When we came in they

looked up. Romero smiled and bowed. We sat down at a table half-way down

the room.

“Ask him to come over and have a drink.”

“Not yet. He’ll come over.”

“I can’t look at him.”

“He’s nice to look at,” I said.

“I’ve always done just what I wanted.”

“I know.”

“I do feel such a bitch.”

“Well,” I said.

“My God!” said Brett, “the things a woman goes through.”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I do feel such a bitch.”

I looked across at the table. Pedro Romero smiled. He said something to

the other people at his table, and stood up. He came over to our table.

I stood up and we shook hands.

“Won’t you have a drink?”

“You must have a drink with me,” he said. He seated himself, asking

Brett’s permission without saying anything. He had very nice manners.

But he kept on smoking his cigar. It went well with his face.

“You like cigars?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I always smoke cigars.”

It was part of his system of authority. It made him seem older. I

noticed his skin. It was clear and smooth and very brown. There was a

triangular scar on his cheek-bone. I saw he was watching Brett. He felt

there was something between them. He must have felt it when Brett gave

him her hand. He was being very careful. I think he was sure, but he did

not want to make any mistake.

“You fight to-morrow?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Algabeno was hurt to-day in Madrid. Did you hear?”

“No,” I said. “Badly?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing. Here,” he showed his hand. Brett reached out and spread the

fingers apart.

“Oh!” he said in English, “you tell fortunes?”

“Sometimes. Do you mind?”

“No. I like it.” He spread his hand flat on the table. “Tell me I live

for always, and be a millionaire.”

He was still very polite, but he was surer of himself. “Look,” he said,

“do you see any bulls in my hand?”

He laughed. His hand was very fine and the wrist was small.

“There are thousands of bulls,” Brett said. She was not at all nervous

now. She looked lovely.

“Good,” Romero laughed. “At a thousand duros apiece,” he said to me in

Spanish. “Tell me some more.”

“It’s a good hand,” Brett said. “I think he’ll live a long time.”

“Say it to me. Not to your friend.”

“I said you’d live a long time.”

“I know it,” Romero said. “I’m never going to die.”

I tapped with my finger-tips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his

head.

“No. Don’t do that. The bulls are my best friends.”

I translated to Brett.

“You kill your friends?” she asked.

“Always,” he said in English, and laughed. “So they don’t kill me.” He

looked at her across the table.

“You know English well.”

“Yes,” he said. “Pretty well, sometimes. But I must not let anybody

know. It would be very bad, a torero who speaks English.”

“Why?” asked Brett.

“It would be bad. The people would not like it. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“They would not like it. Bull-fighters are not like that.”

“What are bull-fighters like?”

He laughed and tipped his hat down over his eyes and changed the angle

of his cigar and the expression of his face.

“Like at the table,” he said. I glanced over. He had mimicked exactly

the expression of Nacional. He smiled, his face natural again. “No. I

must forget English.”

“Don’t forget it, yet,” Brett said.

“No?”

“No.”

“All right.”

He laughed again.

“I would like a hat like that,” Brett said.

“Good. I’ll get you one.”

“Right. See that you do.”

“I will. I’ll get you one to-night.”

I stood up. Romero rose, too.

“Sit down,” I said. “I must go and find our friends and bring them

here.”

He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It

was understood all right.

“Sit down,” Brett said to him. “You must teach me Spanish.”

He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The

hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not

pleasant. When I came back and looked in the café, twenty minutes later,

Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty

cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked

up the glasses and mopped off the table.

CHAPTER

17

Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the

girl’s name.

“We’ve been thrown out,” Edna said.

“By the police,” said Mike. “There’s some people in there that don’t

like me.”

“I’ve kept them out of four fights,” Edna said. “You’ve got to help me.”

Bill’s face was red.

“Come back in, Edna,” he said. “Go on in there and dance with Mike.”

“It’s silly,” Edna said. “There’ll just be another row.”

“Damned Biarritz swine,” Bill said.

“Come on,” Mike said. “After all, it’s a pub. They can’t occupy a whole

pub.”

“Good old Mike,” Bill said. “Damned English swine come here and insult

Mike and try and spoil the fiesta.”

“They’re so bloody,” Mike said. “I hate the English.”

“They can’t insult Mike,” Bill said. “Mike is a swell fellow. They can’t

insult Mike. I won’t stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?” His

voice broke.

“Who cares?” Mike said. “I don’t care. Jake doesn’t care. Do _you_

care?”

“No,” Edna said. “Are you a bankrupt?”

“Of course I am. You don’t care, do you, Bill?”

Bill put his arm around Mike’s shoulder.

“I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I’d show those bastards.”

“They’re just English,” Mike said. “It never makes any difference what

the English say.”

“The dirty swine,” Bill said. “I’m going to clean them out.”

“Bill,” Edna looked at me. “Please don’t go in again, Bill. They’re so

stupid.”

“That’s it,” said Mike. “They’re stupid. I knew that was what it was.”

“They can’t say things like that about Mike,” Bill said.

“Do you know them?” I asked Mike.

“No. I never saw them. They say they know me.”

“I won’t stand it,” Bill said.

“Come on. Let’s go over to the Suizo,” I said.

“They’re a bunch of Edna’s friends from Biarritz,” Bill said.

“They’re simply stupid,” Edna said.

“One of them’s Charley Blackman, from Chicago,” Bill said.

“I was never in Chicago,” Mike said.

Edna started to laugh and could not stop.

“Take me away from here,” she said, “you bankrupts.”

“What kind of a row was it?” I asked Edna. We were walking across the

square to the Suizo. Bill was gone.

“I don’t know what happened, but some one had the police called to keep

Mike out of the back room. There were some people that had known Mike at

Cannes. What’s the matter with Mike?”

“Probably he owes them money” I said. “That’s what people usually get

bitter about.”

In front of the ticket-booths out in the square there were two lines of

people waiting. They were sitting on chairs or crouched on the ground

with blankets and newspapers around them. They were waiting for the

wickets to open in the morning to buy tickets for the bull-fight. The

night was clearing and the moon was out. Some of the people in the line

were sleeping.

At the Café Suizo we had just sat down and ordered Fundador when Robert

Cohn came up.

“Where’s Brett?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“She was with you.”

“She must have gone to bed.”

“She’s not.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

His face was sallow under the light. He was standing up.

“Tell me where she is.”

“Sit down,” I said. “I don’t know where she is.”

“The hell you don’t!”

“You can shut your face.”

“Tell me where Brett is.”

“I’ll not tell you a damn thing.”

“You know where she is.”

“If I did I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Oh, go to hell, Cohn,” Mike called from the table. “Brett’s gone off

with the bull-fighter chap. They’re on their honeymoon.”

“You shut up.”

“Oh, go to hell!” Mike said languidly.

“Is that where she is?” Cohn turned to me.

“Go to hell!”

“She was with you. Is that where she is?”

“Go to hell!”

“I’ll make you tell me”—he stepped forward—“you damned pimp.”

I swung at him and he ducked. I saw his face duck sideways in the light.

He hit me and I sat down on the pavement. As I started to get on my feet

he hit me twice. I went down backward under a table. I tried to get up

and felt I did not have any legs. I felt I must get on my feet and try

and hit him. Mike helped me up. Some one poured a carafe of water on my

head. Mike had an arm around me, and I found I was sitting on a chair.

Mike was pulling at my ears.

“I say, you were cold,” Mike said.

“Where the hell were you?”

“Oh, I was around.”

“You didn’t want to mix in it?”

“He knocked Mike down, too,” Edna said.

“He didn’t knock me out,” Mike said. “I just lay there.”

“Does this happen every night at your fiestas?” Edna asked. “Wasn’t that

Mr. Cohn?”

“I’m all right,” I said. “My head’s a little wobbly.”

There were several waiters and a crowd of people standing around.

“Vaya!” said Mike. “Get away. Go on.”

The waiters moved the people away.

“It was quite a thing to watch,” Edna said. “He must be a boxer.”

“He is.”

“I wish Bill had been here,” Edna said. “I’d like to have seen Bill

knocked down, too. I’ve always wanted to see Bill knocked down. He’s so

big.”

“I was hoping he would knock down a waiter,” Mike said, “and get

arrested. I’d like to see Mr. Robert Cohn in jail.”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, no,” said Edna. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do, though,” Mike said. “I’m not one of these chaps likes being

knocked about. I never play games, even.”

Mike took a drink.

“I never liked to hunt, you know. There was always the danger of having

a horse fall on you. How do you feel, Jake?”

“All right.”

“You’re nice,” Edna said to Mike. “Are you really a bankrupt?”

“I’m a tremendous bankrupt,” Mike said. “I owe money to everybody. Don’t

you owe any money?”

“Tons.”

“I owe everybody money,” Mike said. “I borrowed a hundred pesetas from

Montoya to-night.”

“The hell you did,” I said.

“I’ll pay it back,” Mike said. “I always pay everything back.”

“That’s why you’re a bankrupt, isn’t it?” Edna said.

I stood up. I had heard them talking from a long way away. It all seemed

like some bad play.

“I’m going over to the hotel,” I said. Then I heard them talking about

me.

“Is he all right?” Edna asked.

“We’d better walk with him.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “Don’t come. I’ll see you all later.”

I walked away from the café. They were sitting at the table. I looked

back at them and at the empty tables. There was a waiter sitting at one

of the tables with his head in his hands.

Walking across the square to the hotel everything looked new and

changed. I had never seen the trees before. I had never seen the

flagpoles before, nor the front of the theatre. It was all different. I

felt as I felt once coming home from an out-of-town football game. I was

carrying a suitcase with my football things in it, and I walked up the

street from the station in the town I had lived in all my life and it

was all new. They were raking the lawns and burning leaves in the road,

and I stopped for a long time and watched. It was all strange. Then I

went on, and my feet seemed to be a long way off, and everything seemed

to come from a long way off, and I could hear my feet walking a great

distance away. I had been kicked in the head early in the game. It was

like that crossing the square. It was like that going up the stairs in

the hotel. Going up the stairs took a long time, and I had the feeling

that I was carrying my suitcase. There was a light in the room. Bill

came out and met me in the hall.

“Say,” he said, “go up and see Cohn. He’s been in a jam, and he’s asking

for you.”

“The hell with him.”

“Go on. Go on up and see him.”

I did not want to climb another flight of stairs.

“What are you looking at me that way for?”

“I’m not looking at you. Go on up and see Cohn. He’s in bad shape.”

“You were drunk a little while ago,” I said.

“I’m drunk now,” Bill said. “But you go up and see Cohn. He wants to see

you.”

“All right,” I said. It was just a matter of climbing more stairs. I

went on up the stairs carrying my phantom suitcase. I walked down the

hall to Cohn’s room. The door was shut and I knocked.

“Who is it?”

“Barnes.”

“Come in, Jake.”

I opened the door and went in, and set down my suitcase. There was no

light in the room. Cohn was lying, face down, on the bed in the dark.

“Hello, Jake.”

“Don’t call me Jake.”

I stood by the door. It was just like this that I had come home. Now it

was a hot bath that I needed. A deep, hot bath, to lie back in.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.

Cohn was crying. There he was, face down on the bed, crying. He had on a

white polo shirt, the kind he’d worn at Princeton.

“I’m sorry, Jake. Please forgive me.”

“Forgive you, hell.”

“Please forgive me, Jake.”

I did not say anything. I stood there by the door.

“I was crazy. You must see how it was.”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

“I couldn’t stand it about Brett.”

“You called me a pimp.”

I did not care. I wanted a hot bath. I wanted a hot bath in deep water.

“I know. Please don’t remember it. I was crazy.”

“That’s all right.”

He was crying. His voice was funny. He lay there in his white shirt on

the bed in the dark. His polo shirt.

“I’m going away in the morning.”

He was crying without making any noise.

“I just couldn’t stand it about Brett. I’ve been through hell, Jake.

It’s been simply hell. When I met her down here Brett treated me as

though I were a perfect stranger. I just couldn’t stand it. We lived

together at San Sebastian. I suppose you know it. I can’t stand it any

more.”

He lay there on the bed.

“Well,” I said, “I’m going to take a bath.”

“You were the only friend I had, and I loved Brett so.”

“Well,” I said, “so long.”

“I guess it isn’t any use,” he said. “I guess it isn’t any damn use.”

“What?”

“Everything. Please say you forgive me, Jake.”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s all right.”

“I felt so terribly. I’ve been through such hell, Jake. Now everything’s

gone. Everything.”

“Well,” I said, “so long. I’ve got to go.”

He rolled over, sat on the edge of the bed, and then stood up.

“So long, Jake,” he said. “You’ll shake hands, won’t you?”

“Sure. Why not?”

We shook hands. In the dark I could not see his face very well.

“Well,” I said, “see you in the morning.”

“I’m going away in the morning.”

“Oh, yes,” I said.

I went out. Cohn was standing in the door of the room.

“Are you all right, Jake?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m all right.”

I could not find the bathroom. After a while I found it. There was a

deep stone tub. I turned on the taps and the water would not run. I sat

down on the edge of the bath-tub. When I got up to go I found I had

taken off my shoes. I hunted for them and found them and carried them

down-stairs. I found my room and went inside and undressed and got into

bed.

* * * * *

I woke with a headache and the noise of the bands going by in the

street. I remembered I had promised to take Bill’s friend Edna to see

the bulls go through the street and into the ring. I dressed and went

down-stairs and out into the cold early morning. People were crossing

the square, hurrying toward the bull-ring. Across the square were the

two lines of men in front of the ticket-booths. They were still waiting

for the tickets to go on sale at seven o’clock. I hurried across the

street to the café. The waiter told me that my friends had been there

and gone.

“How many were they?”

“Two gentlemen and a lady.”

That was all right. Bill and Mike were with Edna. She had been afraid

last night they would pass out. That was why I was to be sure to take

her. I drank the coffee and hurried with the other people toward the

bull-ring. I was not groggy now. There was only a bad headache.

Everything looked sharp and clear, and the town smelt of the early

morning.

The stretch of ground from the edge of the town to the bull-ring was

muddy. There was a crowd all along the fence that led to the ring, and

the outside balconies and the top of the bull-ring were solid with

people. I heard the rocket and I knew I could not get into the ring in

time to see the bulls come in, so I shoved through the crowd to the

fence. I was pushed close against the planks of the fence. Between the

two fences of the runway the police were clearing the crowd along. They

walked or trotted on into the bull-ring. Then people commenced to come

running. A drunk slipped and fell. Two policemen grabbed him and rushed

him over to the fence. The crowd were running fast now. There was a

great shout from the crowd, and putting my head through between the

boards I saw the bulls just coming out of the street into the long

running pen. They were going fast and gaining on the crowd. Just then

another drunk started out from the fence with a blouse in his hands. He

wanted to do capework with the bulls. The two policemen tore out,

collared him, one hit him with a club, and they dragged him against the

fence and stood flattened out against the fence as the last of the crowd

and the bulls went by. There were so many people running ahead of the

bulls that the mass thickened and slowed up going through the gate into

the ring, and as the bulls passed, galloping together, heavy,

muddy-sided, horns swinging, one shot ahead, caught a man in the running

crowd in the back and lifted him in the air. Both the man’s arms were by

his sides, his head went back as the horn went in, and the bull lifted

him and then dropped him. The bull picked another man running in front,

but the man disappeared into the crowd, and the crowd was through the

gate and into the ring with the bulls behind them. The red door of the

ring went shut, the crowd on the outside balconies of the bull-ring were

pressing through to the inside, there was a shout, then another shout.

The man who had been gored lay face down in the trampled mud. People

climbed over the fence, and I could not see the man because the crowd

was so thick around him. From inside the ring came the shouts. Each

shout meant a charge by some bull into the crowd. You could tell by the

degree of intensity in the shout how bad a thing it was that was

happening. Then the rocket went up that meant the steers had gotten the

bulls out of the ring and into the corrals. I left the fence and started

back toward the town.

Back in the town I went to the café to have a second coffee and some

buttered toast. The waiters were sweeping out the café and mopping off

the tables. One came over and took my order.

“Anything happen at the encierro?”

“I didn’t see it all. One man was badly cogido.”

“Where?”

“Here.” I put one hand on the small of my back and the other on my

chest, where it looked as though the horn must have come through. The

waiter nodded his head and swept the crumbs from the table with his

cloth.

“Badly cogido,” he said. “All for sport. All for pleasure.”

He went away and came back with the long-handled coffee and milk pots.

He poured the milk and coffee. It came out of the long spouts in two

streams into the big cup. The waiter nodded his head.

“Badly cogido through the back,” he said. He put the pots down on the

table and sat down in the chair at the table. “A big horn wound. All for

fun. Just for fun. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s it. All for fun. Fun, you understand.”

“You’re not an aficionado?”

“Me? What are bulls? Animals. Brute animals.” He stood up and put his

hand on the small of his back. “Right through the back. A cornada right

through the back. For fun—you understand.”

He shook his head and walked away, carrying the coffee-pots. Two men

were going by in the street. The waiter shouted to them. They were

grave-looking. One shook his head. “Muerto!” he called.

The waiter nodded his head. The two men went on. They were on some

errand. The waiter came over to my table.

“You hear? Muerto. Dead. He’s dead. With a horn through him. All for

morning fun. Es muy flamenco.”

“It’s bad.”

“Not for me,” the waiter said. “No fun in that for me.”

Later in the day we learned that the man who was killed was named

Vicente Girones, and came from near Tafalla. The next day in the paper

we read that he was twenty-eight years old, and had a farm, a wife, and

two children. He had continued to come to the fiesta each year after he

was married. The next day his wife came in from Tafalla to be with the

body, and the day after there was a service in the chapel of San Fermin,

and the coffin was carried to the railway-station by members of the

dancing and drinking society of Tafalla. The drums marched ahead, and

there was music on the fifes, and behind the men who carried the coffin

walked the wife and two children. . . . Behind them marched all the

members of the dancing and drinking societies of Pamplona, Estella,

Tafalla, and Sanguesa who could stay over for the funeral. The coffin

was loaded into the baggage-car of the train, and the widow and the two

children rode, sitting, all three together, in an open third-class

railway-carriage. The train started with a jerk, and then ran smoothly,

going down grade around the edge of the plateau and out into the fields

of grain that blew in the wind on the plain on the way to Tafalla.

The bull who killed Vicente Girones was named Bocanegra, was Number 118

of the bull-breeding establishment of Sanchez Tabemo, and was killed by

Pedro Romero as the third bull of that same afternoon. His ear was cut

by popular acclamation and given to Pedro Romero, who, in turn, gave it

to Brett, who wrapped it in a handkerchief belonging to myself, and left

both ear and handkerchief, along with a number of Muratti

cigarette-stubs, shoved far back in the drawer of the bed-table that

stood beside her bed in the Hotel Montoya, in Pamplona.

* * * * *

Back in the hotel, the night watchman was sitting on a bench inside the

door. He had been there all night and was very sleepy. He stood up as I

came in. Three of the waitresses came in at the same time. They had been

to the morning show at the bull-ring. They went up-stairs laughing. I

followed them up-stairs and went into my room. I took off my shoes and

lay down on the bed. The window was open onto the balcony and the

sunlight was bright in the room. I did not feel sleepy. It must have

been half past three o’clock when I had gone to bed and the bands had

waked me at six. My jaw was sore on both sides. I felt it with my thumb

and fingers. That damn Cohn. He should have hit somebody the first time

he was insulted, and then gone away. He was so sure that Brett loved

him. He was going to stay, and true love would conquer all. Some one

knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

It was Bill and Mike. They sat down on the bed.

“Some encierro,” Bill said. “Some encierro.”

“I say, weren’t you there?” Mike asked. “Ring for some beer, Bill.”

“What a morning!” Bill said. He mopped off his face. “My God! what a

morning! And here’s old Jake. Old Jake, the human punching-bag.”

“What happened inside?”

“Good God!” Bill said, “what happened, Mike?”

“There were these bulls coming in,” Mike said. “Just ahead of them was

the crowd, and some chap tripped and brought the whole lot of them

down.”

“And the bulls all came in right over them,” Bill said.

“I heard them yell.”

“That was Edna,” Bill said.

“Chaps kept coming out and waving their shirts.”

“One bull went along the barrera and hooked everybody over.”

“They took about twenty chaps to the infirmary,” Mike said.

“What a morning!” Bill said. “The damn police kept arresting chaps that

wanted to go and commit suicide with the bulls.”

“The steers took them in, in the end,” Mike said.

“It took about an hour.”

“It was really about a quarter of an hour,” Mike objected.

“Oh, go to hell,” Bill said. “You’ve been in the war. It was two hours

and a half for me.”

“Where’s that beer?” Mike asked.

“What did you do with the lovely Edna?”

“We took her home just now. She’s gone to bed.”

“How did she like it?”

“Fine. We told her it was just like that every morning.”

“She was impressed,” Mike said.

“She wanted us to go down in the ring, too,” Bill said. “She likes

action.”

“I said it wouldn’t be fair to my creditors,” Mike said.

“What a morning,” Bill said. “And what a night!”

“How’s your jaw, Jake?” Mike asked.

“Sore,” I said.

Bill laughed.

“Why didn’t you hit him with a chair?”

“You can talk,” Mike said. “He’d have knocked you out, too. I never saw

him hit me. I rather think I saw him just before, and then quite

suddenly I was sitting down in the street, and Jake was lying under a

table.”

“Where did he go afterward?” I asked.

“Here she is,” Mike said. “Here’s the beautiful lady with the beer.”

The chambermaid put the tray with the beer-bottles and glasses down on

the table.

“Now bring up three more bottles,” Mike said.

“Where did Cohn go after he hit me?” I asked Bill.

“Don’t you know about that?” Mike was opening a beer-bottle. He poured

the beer into one of the glasses, holding the glass close to the bottle.

“Really?” Bill asked.

“Why he went in and found Brett and the bull-fighter chap in the

bull-fighter’s room, and then he massacred the poor, bloody

bull-fighter.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“What a night!” Bill said.

“He nearly killed the poor, bloody bull-fighter. Then Cohn wanted to

take Brett away. Wanted to make an honest woman of her, I imagine.

Damned touching scene.”

He took a long drink of the beer.

“He is an ass.”

“What happened?”

“Brett gave him what for. She told him off. I think she was rather

good.”

“I’ll bet she was,” Bill said.

“Then Cohn broke down and cried, and wanted to shake hands with the

bull-fighter fellow. He wanted to shake hands with Brett, too.”

“I know. He shook hands with me.”

“Did he? Well, they weren’t having any of it. The bull-fighter fellow

was rather good. He didn’t say much, but he kept getting up and getting

knocked down again. Cohn couldn’t knock him out. It must have been

damned funny.”

“Where did you hear all this?”

“Brett. I saw her this morning.”

“What happened finally?”

“It seems the bull-fighter fellow was sitting on the bed. He’d been

knocked down about fifteen times, and he wanted to fight some more.

Brett held him and wouldn’t let him get up. He was weak, but Brett

couldn’t hold him, and he got up. Then Cohn said he wouldn’t hit him

again. Said he couldn’t do it. Said it would be wicked. So the

bull-fighter chap sort of rather staggered over to him. Cohn went back

against the wall.

“‘So you won’t hit me?’

“‘No,’ said Cohn. ‘I’d be ashamed to.’

“So the bull-fighter fellow hit him just as hard as he could in the

face, and then sat down on the floor. He couldn’t get up, Brett said.

Cohn wanted to pick him up and carry him to the bed. He said if Cohn

helped him he’d kill him, and he’d kill him anyway this morning if Cohn

wasn’t out of town. Cohn was crying, and Brett had told him off, and he

wanted to shake hands. I’ve told you that before.”

“Tell the rest,” Bill said.

“It seems the bull-fighter chap was sitting on the floor. He was waiting

to get strength enough to get up and hit Cohn again. Brett wasn’t having

any shaking hands, and Cohn was crying and telling her how much he loved

her, and she was telling him not to be a ruddy ass. Then Cohn leaned

down to shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. No hard feelings, you

know. All for forgiveness. And the bull-fighter chap hit him in the face

again.”

“That’s quite a kid,” Bill said.

“He ruined Cohn,” Mike said. “You know I don’t think Cohn will ever want

to knock people about again.”

“When did you see Brett?”

“This morning. She came in to get some things. She’s looking after this

Romero lad.”

He poured out another bottle of beer.

“Brett’s rather cut up. But she loves looking after people. That’s how

we came to go off together. She was looking after me.”

“I know,” I said.

“I’m rather drunk,” Mike said. “I think I’ll _stay_ rather drunk. This

is all awfully amusing, but it’s not too pleasant. It’s not too pleasant

for me.”

He drank off the beer.

“I gave Brett what for, you know. I said if she would go about with Jews

and bull-fighters and such people, she must expect trouble.” He leaned

forward. “I say, Jake, do you mind if I drink that bottle of yours?

She’ll bring you another one.”

“Please,” I said. “I wasn’t drinking it, anyway.”

Mike started to open the bottle. “Would you mind opening it?” I pressed

up the wire fastener and poured it for him.

“You know,” Mike went on, “Brett was rather good. She’s always rather

good. I gave her a fearful hiding about Jews and bull-fighters, and all

those sort of people, and do you know what she said: ‘Yes. I’ve had such

a hell of a happy life with the British aristocracy!’”

He took a drink.

“That was rather good. Ashley, chap she got the title from, was a

sailor, you know. Ninth baronet. When he came home he wouldn’t sleep in

a bed. Always made Brett sleep on the floor. Finally, when he got really

bad, he used to tell her he’d kill her. Always slept with a loaded

service revolver. Brett used to take the shells out when he’d gone to

sleep. She hasn’t had an absolutely happy life. Brett. Damned shame,

too. She enjoys things so.”

He stood up. His hand was shaky.

“I’m going in the room. Try and get a little sleep.”

He smiled.

“We go too long without sleep in these fiestas. I’m going to start now

and get plenty of sleep. Damn bad thing not to get sleep. Makes you

frightfully nervy.”

“We’ll see you at noon at the Iruña,” Bill said.

Mike went out the door. We heard him in the next room.

He rang the bell and the chambermaid came and knocked at the door.

“Bring up half a dozen bottles of beer and a bottle of Fundador,” Mike

told her.

“Si, Señorito.”

“I’m going to bed,” Bill said. “Poor old Mike. I had a hell of a row

about him last night.”

“Where? At that Milano place?”

“Yes. There was a fellow there that had helped pay Brett and Mike out of

Cannes, once. He was damned nasty.”

“I know the story.”

“I didn’t. Nobody ought to have a right to say things about Mike.”

“That’s what makes it bad.”

“They oughtn’t to have any right. I wish to hell they didn’t have any

right. I’m going to bed.”

“Was anybody killed in the ring?”

“I don’t think so. Just badly hurt.”

“A man was killed outside in the runway.”

“Was there?” said Bill.

CHAPTER

18

At noon we were all at the café. It was crowded. We were eating shrimps

and drinking beer. The town was crowded. Every street was full. Big

motor-cars from Biarritz and San Sebastian kept driving up and parking

around the square. They brought people for the bull-fight. Sight-seeing

cars came up, too. There was one with twenty-five Englishwomen in it.

They sat in the big, white car and looked through their glasses at the

fiesta. The dancers were all quite drunk. It was the last day of the

fiesta.

The fiesta was solid and unbroken, but the motor-cars and tourist-cars

made little islands of onlookers. When the cars emptied, the onlookers

were absorbed into the crowd. You did not see them again except as sport

clothes, odd-looking at a table among the closely packed peasants in

black smocks. The fiesta absorbed even the Biarritz English so that you

did not see them unless you passed close to a table. All the time there

was music in the street. The drums kept on pounding and the pipes were

going. Inside the cafés men with their hands gripping the table, or on

each other’s shoulders, were singing the hard-voiced singing.

“Here comes Brett,” Bill said.

I looked and saw her coming through the crowd in the square, walking,

her head up, as though the fiesta were being staged in her honor, and

she found it pleasant and amusing.

“Hello, you chaps!” she said. “I say, I _have_ a thirst.”

“Get another big beer,” Bill said to the waiter.

“Shrimps?”

“Is Cohn gone?” Brett asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “He hired a car.”

The beer came. Brett started to lift the glass mug and her hand shook.

She saw it and smiled, and leaned forward and took a long sip.

“Good beer.”

“Very good,” I said. I was nervous about Mike. I did not think he had

slept. He must have been drinking all the time, but he seemed to be

under control.

“I heard Cohn had hurt you, Jake,” Brett said.

“No. Knocked me out. That was all.”

“I say, he did hurt Pedro Romero,” Brett said. “He hurt him most badly.”

“How is he?”

“He’ll be all right. He won’t go out of the room.”

“Does he look badly?”

“Very. He was really hurt. I told him I wanted to pop out and see you

chaps for a minute.”

“Is he going to fight?”

“Rather. I’m going with you, if you don’t mind.”

“How’s your boy friend?” Mike asked. He had not listened to anything

that Brett had said.

“Brett’s got a bull-fighter,” he said. “She had a Jew named Cohn, but he

turned out badly.”

Brett stood up.

“I am not going to listen to that sort of rot from you, Michael.”

“How’s your boy friend?”

“Damned well,” Brett said. “Watch him this afternoon.”

“Brett’s got a bull-fighter,” Mike said. “A beautiful, bloody

bull-fighter.”

“Would you mind walking over with me? I want to talk to you, Jake.”

“Tell him all about your bull-fighter,” Mike said. “Oh, to hell with

your bull-fighter!” He tipped the table so that all the beers and the

dish of shrimps went over in a crash.

“Come on,” Brett said. “Let’s get out of this.”

In the crowd crossing the square I said: “How is it?”

“I’m not going to see him after lunch until the fight. His people come

in and dress him. They’re very angry about me, he says.”

Brett was radiant. She was happy. The sun was out and the day was

bright.

“I feel altogether changed,” Brett said. “You’ve no idea, Jake.”

“Anything you want me to do?”

“No, just go to the fight with me.”

“We’ll see you at lunch?”

“No. I’m eating with him.”

We were standing under the arcade at the door of the hotel. They were

carrying tables out and setting them up under the arcade.

“Want to take a turn out to the park?” Brett asked. “I don’t want to go

up yet. I fancy he’s sleeping.”

We walked along past the theatre and out of the square and along through

the barracks of the fair, moving with the crowd between the lines of

booths. We came out on a cross-street that led to the Paseo de Sarasate.

We could see the crowd walking there, all the fashionably dressed

people. They were making the turn at the upper end of the park.

“Don’t let’s go there,” Brett said. “I don’t want staring at just now.”

We stood in the sunlight. It was hot and good after the rain and the

clouds from the sea.

“I hope the wind goes down,” Brett said. “It’s very bad for him.”

“So do I.”

“He says the bulls are all right.”

“They’re good.”

“Is that San Fermin’s?”

Brett looked at the yellow wall of the chapel.

“Yes. Where the show started on Sunday.”

“Let’s go in. Do you mind? I’d rather like to pray a little for him or

something.”

We went in through the heavy leather door that moved very lightly. It

was dark inside. Many people were praying. You saw them as your eyes

adjusted themselves to the half-light. We knelt at one of the long

wooden benches. After a little I felt Brett stiffen beside me, and saw

she was looking straight ahead.

“Come on,” she whispered throatily. “Let’s get out of here. Makes me

damned nervous.”

Outside in the hot brightness of the street Brett looked up at the

tree-tops in the wind. The praying had not been much of a success.

“Don’t know why I get so nervy in church,” Brett said. “Never does me

any good.”

We walked along.

“I’m damned bad for a religious atmosphere,” Brett said. “I’ve the wrong

type of face.

“You know,” Brett said, “I’m not worried about him at all. I just feel

happy about him.”

“Good.”

“I wish the wind would drop, though.”

“It’s liable to go down by five o’clock.”

“Let’s hope.”

“You might pray,” I laughed.

“Never does me any good. I’ve never gotten anything I prayed for. Have

you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Oh, rot,” said Brett. “Maybe it works for some people, though. You

don’t look very religious, Jake.”

“I’m pretty religious.”

“Oh, rot,” said Brett. “Don’t start proselyting to-day. To-day’s going

to be bad enough as it is.”

It was the first time I had seen her in the old happy, careless way

since before she went off with Cohn. We were back again in front of the

hotel. All the tables were set now, and already several were filled with

people eating.

“Do look after Mike,” Brett said. “Don’t let him get too bad.”

“Your frients haff gone up-stairs,” the German maître d’hôtel said in

English. He was a continual eavesdropper. Brett turned to him:

“Thank you, so much. Have you anything else to say?”

“No, _ma’am_.”

“Good,” said Brett.

“Save us a table for three,” I said to the German. He smiled his dirty

little pink-and-white smile.

“Iss madam eating here?”

“No,” Brett said.

“Den I think a tabul for two will be enuff.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Brett said. “Mike must have been in bad shape,” she

said on the stairs. We passed Montoya on the stairs. He bowed and did

not smile.

“I’ll see you at the café,” Brett said. “Thank you, so much, Jake.”

We had stopped at the floor our rooms were on. She went straight down

the hall and into Romero’s room. She did not knock. She simply opened

the door, went in, and closed it behind her.

I stood in front of the door of Mike’s room and knocked. There was no

answer. I tried the knob and it opened. Inside the room was in great

disorder. All the bags were opened and clothing was strewn around. There

were empty bottles beside the bed. Mike lay on the bed looking like a

death mask of himself. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Hello, Jake,” he said very slowly. “I’m getting a lit tle sleep. I’ve

want ed a lit tle sleep for a long time.”

“Let me cover you over.”

“No. I’m quite warm.”

“Don’t go. I have n’t got ten to sleep yet.”

“You’ll sleep, Mike. Don’t worry, boy.”

“Brett’s got a bull-fighter,” Mike said. “But her Jew has gone away.”

He turned his head and looked at me.

“Damned good thing, what?”

“Yes. Now go to sleep, Mike. You ought to get some sleep.”

“I’m just start ing. I’m go ing to get a lit tle sleep.”

He shut his eyes. I went out of the room and turned the door to quietly.

Bill was in my room reading the paper.

“See Mike?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go and eat.”

“I won’t eat down-stairs with that German head waiter. He was damned

snotty when I was getting Mike up-stairs.”

“He was snotty to us, too.”

“Let’s go out and eat in the town.”

We went down the stairs. On the stairs we passed a girl coming up with a

covered tray.

“There goes Brett’s lunch,” Bill said.

“And the kid’s,” I said.

Outside on the terrace under the arcade the German head waiter came up.

His red cheeks were shiny. He was being polite.

“I haff a tabul for two for you gentlemen,” he said.

“Go sit at it,” Bill said. We went on out across the street.

We ate at a restaurant in a side street off the square. They were all

men eating in the restaurant. It was full of smoke and drinking and

singing. The food was good and so was the wine. We did not talk much.

Afterward we went to the café and watched the fiesta come to the

boiling-point. Brett came over soon after lunch. She said she had looked

in the room and that Mike was asleep.

When the fiesta boiled over and toward the bull-ring we went with the

crowd. Brett sat at the ringside between Bill and me. Directly below us

was the callejon, the passageway between the stands and the red fence of

the barrera. Behind us the concrete stands filled solidly. Out in front,

beyond the red fence, the sand of the ring was smooth-rolled and yellow.

It looked a little heavy from the rain, but it was dry in the sun and

firm and smooth. The sword-handlers and bull-ring servants came down the

callejon carrying on their shoulders the wicker baskets of fighting

capes and muletas. They were bloodstained and compactly folded and

packed in the baskets. The sword-handlers opened the heavy leather

sword-cases so the red wrapped hilts of the sheaf of swords showed as

the leather case leaned against the fence. They unfolded the

dark-stained red flannel of the muletas and fixed batons in them to

spread the stuff and give the matador something to hold. Brett watched

it all. She was absorbed in the professional details.

“He’s his name stencilled on all the capes and muletas,” she said. “Why

do they call them muletas?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wonder if they ever launder them.”

“I don’t think so. It might spoil the color.”

“The blood must stiffen them,” Bill said.

“Funny,” Brett said. “How one doesn’t mind the blood.”

Below in the narrow passage of the callejon the sword-handlers arranged

everything. All the seats were full. Above, all the boxes were full.

There was not an empty seat except in the President’s box. When he came

in the fight would start. Across the smooth sand, in the high doorway

that led into the corrals, the bull-fighters were standing, their arms

furled in their capes, talking, waiting for the signal to march in

across the arena. Brett was watching them with the glasses.

“Here, would you like to look?”

I looked through the glasses and saw the three matadors. Romero was in

the centre, Belmonte on his left, Marcial on his right. Back of them

were their people, and behind the banderilleros, back in the passageway

and in the open space of the corral, I saw the picadors. Romero was

wearing a black suit. His tricornered hat was low down over his eyes. I

could not see his face clearly under the hat, but it looked badly

marked. He was looking straight ahead. Marcial was smoking a cigarette

guardedly, holding it in his hand. Belmonte looked ahead, his face wan

and yellow, his long wolf jaw out. He was looking at nothing. Neither he

nor Romero seemed to have anything in common with the others. They were

all alone. The President came in; there was handclapping above us in the

grand stand, and I handed the glasses to Brett. There was applause. The

music started. Brett looked through the glasses.

“Here, take them,” she said.

Through the glasses I saw Belmonte speak to Romero. Marcial straightened

up and dropped his cigarette, and, looking straight ahead, their heads

back, their free arms swinging, the three matadors walked out. Behind

them came all the procession, opening out, all striding in step, all the

capes furled, everybody with free arms swinging, and behind rode the

picadors, their pics rising like lances. Behind all came the two trains

of mules and the bull-ring servants. The matadors bowed, holding their

hats on, before the President’s box, and then came over to the barrera

below us. Pedro Romero took off his heavy gold-brocaded cape and handed

it over the fence to his sword-handler. He said something to the

sword-handler. Close below us we saw Romero’s lips were puffed, both

eyes were discolored. His face was discolored and swollen. The

sword-handler took the cape, looked up at Brett, and came over to us and

handed up the cape.

“Spread it out in front of you,” I said.

Brett leaned forward. The cape was heavy and smoothly stiff with gold.

The sword-handler looked back, shook his head, and said something. A man

beside me leaned over toward Brett.

“He doesn’t want you to spread it,” he said. “You should fold it and

keep it in your lap.”

Brett folded the heavy cape.

Romero did not look up at us. He was speaking to Belmonte. Belmonte had

sent his formal cape over to some friends. He looked across at them and

smiled, his wolf smile that was only with the mouth. Romero leaned over

the barrera and asked for the water-jug. The sword-handler brought it

and Romero poured water over the percale of his fighting-cape, and then

scuffed the lower folds in the sand with his slippered foot.

“What’s that for?” Brett asked.

“To give it weight in the wind.”

“His face looks bad,” Bill said.

“He feels very badly,” Brett said. “He should be in bed.”

The first bull was Belmonte’s. Belmonte was very good. But because he

got thirty thousand pesetas and people had stayed in line all night to

buy tickets to see him, the crowd demanded that he should be more than

very good. Belmonte’s great attraction is working close to the bull. In

bull-fighting they speak of the terrain of the bull and the terrain of

the bull-fighter. As long as a bull-fighter stays in his own terrain he

is comparatively safe. Each time he enters into the terrain of the bull

he is in great danger. Belmonte, in his best days, worked always in the

terrain of the bull. This way he gave the sensation of coming tragedy.

People went to the corrida to see Belmonte, to be given tragic

sensations, and perhaps to see the death of Belmonte. Fifteen years ago

they said if you wanted to see Belmonte you should go quickly, while he

was still alive. Since then he has killed more than a thousand bulls.

When he retired the legend grew up about how his bull-fighting had been,

and when he came out of retirement the public were disappointed because

no real man could work as close to the bulls as Belmonte was supposed to

have done, not, of course, even Belmonte.

Also Belmonte imposed conditions and insisted that his bulls should not

be too large, nor too dangerously armed with horns, and so the element

that was necessary to give the sensation of tragedy was not there, and

the public, who wanted three times as much from Belmonte, who was sick

with a fistula, as Belmonte had ever been able to give, felt defrauded

and cheated, and Belmonte’s jaw came further out in contempt, and his

face turned yellower, and he moved with greater difficulty as his pain

increased, and finally the crowd were actively against him, and he was

utterly contemptuous and indifferent. He had meant to have a great

afternoon, and instead it was an afternoon of sneers, shouted insults,

and finally a volley of cushions and pieces of bread and vegetables,

thrown down at him in the plaza where he had had his greatest triumphs.

His jaw only went further out. Sometimes he turned to smile that

toothed, long-jawed, lipless smile when he was called something

particularly insulting, and always the pain that any movement produced

grew stronger and stronger, until finally his yellow face was parchment

color, and after his second bull was dead and the throwing of bread and

cushions was over, after he had saluted the President with the same

wolf-jawed smile and contemptuous eyes, and handed his sword over the

barrera to be wiped, and put back in its case, he passed through into

the callejon and leaned on the barrera below us, his head on his arms,

not seeing, not hearing anything, only going through his pain. When he

looked up, finally, he asked for a drink of water. He swallowed a

little, rinsed his mouth, spat the water, took his cape, and went back

into the ring.

Because they were against Belmonte the public were for Romero. From the

moment he left the barrera and went toward the bull they applauded him.

Belmonte watched Romero, too, watched him always without seeming to. He

paid no attention to Marcial. Marcial was the sort of thing he knew all

about. He had come out of retirement to compete with Marcial, knowing it

was a competition gained in advance. He had expected to compete with

Marcial and the other stars of the decadence of bull-fighting, and he

knew that the sincerity of his own bull-fighting would be so set off by

the false æsthetics of the bull-fighters of the decadent period that he

would only have to be in the ring. His return from retirement had been

spoiled by Romero. Romero did always, smoothly, calmly, and beautifully,

what he, Belmonte, could only bring himself to do now sometimes. The

crowd felt it, even the people from Biarritz, even the American

ambassador saw it, finally. It was a competition that Belmonte would not

enter because it would lead only to a bad horn wound or death. Belmonte

was no longer well enough. He no longer had his greatest moments in the

bull-ring. He was not sure that there were any great moments. Things

were not the same and now life only came in flashes. He had flashes of

the old greatness with his bulls, but they were not of value because he

had discounted them in advance when he had picked the bulls out for

their safety, getting out of a motor and leaning on a fence, looking

over at the herd on the ranch of his friend the bull-breeder. So he had

two small, manageable bulls without much horns, and when he felt the

greatness again coming, just a little of it through the pain that was

always with him, it had been discounted and sold in advance, and it did

not give him a good feeling. It was the greatness, but it did not make

bull-fighting wonderful to him any more.

Pedro Romero had the greatness. He loved bull-fighting, and I think he

loved the bulls, and I think he loved Brett. Everything of which he

could control the locality he did in front of her all that afternoon.

Never once did he look up. He made it stronger that way, and did it for

himself, too, as well as for her. Because he did not look up to ask if

it pleased he did it all for himself inside, and it strengthened him,

and yet he did it for her, too. But he did not do it for her at any loss

to himself. He gained by it all through the afternoon.

His first “quite” was directly below us. The three matadors take the

bull in turn after each charge he makes at a picador. Belmonte was the

first. Marcial was the second. Then came Romero. The three of them were

standing at the left of the horse. The picador, his hat down over his

eyes, the shaft of his pic angling sharply toward the bull, kicked in

the spurs and held them and with the reins in his left hand walked the

horse forward toward the bull. The bull was watching. Seemingly he

watched the white horse, but really he watched the triangular steel

point of the pic. Romero, watching, saw the bull start to turn his head.

He did not want to charge. Romero flicked his cape so the color caught

the bull’s eye. The bull charged with the reflex, charged, and found not

the flash of color but a white horse, and a man leaned far over the

horse, shot the steel point of the long hickory shaft into the hump of

muscle on the bull’s shoulder, and pulled his horse sideways as he

pivoted on the pic, making a wound, enforcing the iron into the bull’s

shoulder, making him bleed for Belmonte.

The bull did not insist under the iron. He did not really want to get at

the horse. He turned and the group broke apart and Romero was taking him

out with his cape. He took him out softly and smoothly, and then stopped

and, standing squarely in front of the bull, offered him the cape. The

bull’s tail went up and he charged, and Romero moved his arms ahead of

the bull, wheeling, his feet firmed. The dampened, mud-weighted cape

swung open and full as a sail fills, and Romero pivoted with it just

ahead of the bull. At the end of the pass they were facing each other

again. Romero smiled. The bull wanted it again, and Romero’s cape filled

again, this time on the other side. Each time he let the bull pass so

close that the man and the bull and the cape that filled and pivoted

ahead of the bull were all one sharply etched mass. It was all so slow

and so controlled. It was as though he were rocking the bull to sleep.

He made four veronicas like that, and finished with a half-veronica that

turned his back on the bull and came away toward the applause, his hand

on his hip, his cape on his arm, and the bull watching his back going

away.

In his own bulls he was perfect. His first bull did not see well. After

the first two passes with the cape Romero knew exactly how bad the

vision was impaired. He worked accordingly. It was not brilliant

bull-fighting. It was only perfect bull-fighting. The crowd wanted the

bull changed. They made a great row. Nothing very fine could happen with

a bull that could not see the lures, but the President would not order

him replaced.

“Why don’t they change him?” Brett asked.

“They’ve paid for him. They don’t want to lose their money.”

“It’s hardly fair to Romero.”

“Watch how he handles a bull that can’t see the color.”

“It’s the sort of thing I don’t like to see.”

It was not nice to watch if you cared anything about the person who was

doing it. With the bull who could not see the colors of the capes, or

the scarlet flannel of the muleta, Romero had to make the bull consent

with his body. He had to get so close that the bull saw his body, and

would start for it, and then shift the bull’s charge to the flannel and

finish out the pass in the classic manner. The Biarritz crowd did not

like it They thought Romero was afraid, and that was why he gave that

little sidestep each time as he transferred the bull’s charge from his

own body to the flannel. They preferred Belmonte’s imitation of himself

or Marcial’s imitation of Belmonte. There were three of them in the row

behind us.

“What’s he afraid of the bull for? The bull’s so dumb he only goes after

the cloth.”

“He’s just a young bull-fighter. He hasn’t learned it yet.”

“But I thought he was fine with the cape before.”

“Probably he’s nervous now.”

Out in the centre of the ring, all alone, Romero was going on with the

same thing, getting so close that the bull could see him plainly,

offering the body, offering it again a little closer, the bull watching

dully, then so close that the bull thought he had him, offering again

and finally drawing the charge and then, just before the horns came,

giving the bull the red cloth to follow with at little, almost

imperceptible, jerk that so offended the critical judgment of the

Biarritz bull-fight experts.

“He’s going to kill now,” I said to Brett. “The bull’s still strong. He

wouldn’t wear himself out.”

Out in the centre of the ring Romero profiled in front of the bull, drew

the sword out from the folds of the muleta, rose on his toes, and

sighted along the blade. The bull charged as Romero charged. Romero’s

left hand dropped the muleta over the bull’s muzzle to blind him, his

left shoulder went forward between the horns as the sword went in, and

for just an instant he and the bull were one, Romero way out over the

bull, the right arm extended high up to where the hilt of the sword had

gone in between the bull’s shoulders. Then the figure was broken. There

was a little jolt as Romero came clear, and then he was standing, one

hand up, facing the bull, his shirt ripped out from under his sleeve,

the white blowing in the wind, and the bull, the red sword hilt tight

between his shoulders, his head going down and his legs settling.

“There he goes,” Bill said.

Romero was close enough so the bull could see him. His hand still up, he

spoke to the bull. The bull gathered himself, then his head went forward

and he went over slowly, then all over, suddenly, four feet in the air.

They handed the sword to Romero, and carrying it blade down, the muleta

in his other hand, he walked over to in front of the President’s box,

bowed, straightened, and came over to the barrera and handed over the

sword and muleta.

“Bad one,” said the sword-handler.

“He made me sweat,” said Romero. He wiped off his face. The

sword-handler handed him the water-jug. Romero wiped his lips. It hurt

him to drink out of the jug. He did not look up at us.

Marcial had a big day. They were still applauding him when Romero’s last

bull came in. It was the bull that had sprinted out and killed the man

in the morning running.

During Romero’s first bull his hurt face had been very noticeable.

Everything he did showed it. All the concentration of the awkwardly

delicate working with the bull that could not see well brought it out.

The fight with Cohn had not touched his spirit but his face had been

smashed and his body hurt. He was wiping all that out now. Each thing

that he did with this bull wiped that out a little cleaner. It was a

good bull, a big bull, and with horns, and it turned and recharged

easily and surely. He was what Romero wanted in bulls.

When he had finished his work with the muleta and was ready to kill, the

crowd made him go on. They did not want the bull killed yet, they did

not want it to be over. Romero went on. It was like a course in

bull-fighting. All the passes he linked up, all completed, all slow,

templed and smooth. There were no tricks and no mystifications. There

was no brusqueness. And each pass as it reached the summit gave you a

sudden ache inside. The crowd did not want it ever to be finished.

The bull was squared on all four feet to be killed, and Romero killed

directly below us. He killed not as he had been forced to by the last

bull, but as he wanted to. He profiled directly in front of the bull,

drew the sword out of the folds of the muleta and sighted along the

blade. The bull watched him. Romero spoke to the bull and tapped one of

his feet. The bull charged and Romero waited for the charge, the muleta

held low, sighting along the blade, his feet firm. Then without taking a

step forward, he became one with the bull, the sword was in high between

the shoulders, the bull had followed the low-swung flannel, that

disappeared as Romero lurched clear to the left, and it was over. The

bull tried to go forward, his legs commenced to settle, he swung from

side to side, hesitated, then went down on his knees, and Romero’s older

brother leaned forward behind him and drove a short knife into the

bull’s neck at the base of the horns. The first time he missed. He drove

the knife in again, and the bull went over, twitching and rigid.

Romero’s brother, holding the bull’s horn in one hand, the knife in the

other, looked up at the President’s box. Handkerchiefs were waving all

over the bull-ring. The President looked down from the box and waved his

handkerchief. The brother cut the notched black ear from the dead bull

and trotted over with it to Romero. The bull lay heavy and black on the

sand, his tongue out. Boys were running toward him from all parts of the

arena, making a little circle around him. They were starting to dance

around the bull.

Romero took the ear from his brother and held it up toward the

President. The President bowed and Romero, running to get ahead of the

crowd, came toward us. He leaned up against the barrera and gave the ear

to Brett. He nodded his head and smiled. The crowd were all about him.

Brett held down the cape.

“You liked it?” Romero called.

Brett did not say anything. They looked at each other and smiled. Brett

had the ear in her hand.

“Don’t get bloody,” Romero said, and grinned. The crowd wanted him.

Several boys shouted at Brett. The crowd was the boys, the dancers, and

the drunks. Romero turned and tried to get through the crowd. They were

all around him trying to lift him and put him on their shoulders. He

fought and twisted away, and started running, in the midst of them,

toward the exit. He did not want to be carried on people’s shoulders.

But they held him and lifted him. It was uncomfortable and his legs were

spraddled and his body was very sore. They were lifting him and all

running toward the gate. He had his hand on somebody’s shoulder. He

looked around at us apologetically. The crowd, running, went out the

gate with him.

We all three went back to the hotel. Brett went up-stairs. Bill and I

sat in the down-stairs dining-room and ate some hard-boiled eggs and

drank several bottles of beer. Belmonte came down in his street clothes

with his manager and two other men. They sat at the next table and ate.

Belmonte ate very little. They were leaving on the seven o’clock train

for Barcelona. Belmonte wore a blue-striped shirt and a dark suit, and

ate soft-boiled eggs. The others ate a big meal. Belmonte did not talk.

He only answered questions.

Bill was tired after the bull-fight. So was I. We both took a bull-fight

very hard. We sat and ate the eggs and I watched Belmonte and the people

at his table. The men with him were tough-looking and businesslike.

“Come on over to the café,” Bill said. “I want an absinthe.”

It was the last day of the fiesta. Outside it was beginning to be cloudy

again. The square was full of people and the fireworks experts were

making up their set pieces for the night and covering them over with

beech branches. Boys were watching. We passed stands of rockets with

long bamboo stems. Outside the café there was a great crowd. The music

and the dancing were going on. The giants and the dwarfs were passing.

“Where’s Edna?” I asked Bill.

“I don’t know.”

We watched the beginning of the evening of the last night of the fiesta.

The absinthe made everything seem better. I drank it without sugar in

the dripping glass, and it was pleasantly bitter.

“I feel sorry about Cohn,” Bill said. “He had an awful time.”

“Oh, to hell with Cohn,” I said.

“Where do you suppose he went?”

“Up to Paris.”

“What do you suppose he’ll do?”

“Oh, to hell with him.”

“What do you suppose he’ll do?”

“Pick up with his old girl, probably.”

“Who was his old girl?”

“Somebody named Frances.”

We had another absinthe.

“When do you go back?” I asked.

“To-morrow.”

After a little while Bill said: “Well, it was a swell fiesta.”

“Yes,” I said; “something doing all the time.”

“You wouldn’t believe it. It’s like a wonderful nightmare.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d believe anything. Including nightmares.”

“What’s the matter? Feel low?”

“Low as hell.”

“Have another absinthe. Here, waiter! Another absinthe for this señor.”

“I feel like hell,” I said.

“Drink that,” said Bill. “Drink it slow.”

It was beginning to get dark. The fiesta was going on. I began to feel

drunk but I did not feel any better.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like hell.”

“Have another?”

“It won’t do any good.”

“Try it. You can’t tell; maybe this is the one that gets it. Hey,

waiter! Another absinthe for this señor!”

I poured the water directly into it and stirred it instead of letting it

drip. Bill put in a lump of ice. I stirred the ice around with a spoon

in the brownish, cloudy mixture.

“How is it?”

“Fine.”

“Don’t drink it fast that way. It will make you sick.”

I set down the glass. I had not meant to drink it fast.

“I feel tight.”

“You ought to.”

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Sure. Get tight. Get over your damn depression.”

“Well, I’m tight. Is that what you want?”

“Sit down.”

“I won’t sit down,” I said. “I’m going over to the hotel.”

I was very drunk. I was drunker than I ever remembered having been. At

the hotel I went up-stairs. Brett’s door was open. I put my head in the

room. Mike was sitting on the bed. He waved a bottle.

“Jake,” he said. “Come in, Jake.”

I went in and sat down. The room was unstable unless I looked at some

fixed point.

“Brett, you know. She’s gone off with the bull-fighter chap.”

“No.”

“Yes. She looked for you to say good-bye. They went on the seven o’clock

train.”

“Did they?”

“Bad thing to do,” Mike said. “She shouldn’t have done it.”

“No.”

“Have a drink? Wait while I ring for some beer.”

“I’m drunk,” I said. “I’m going in and lie down.”

“Are you blind? I was blind myself.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m blind.”

“Well, bung-o,” Mike said. “Get some sleep, old Jake.”

I went out the door and into my own room and lay on the bed. The bed

went sailing off and I sat up in bed and looked at the wall to make it

stop. Outside in the square the fiesta was going on. It did not mean

anything. Later Bill and Mike came in to get me to go down and eat with

them. I pretended to be asleep.

“He’s asleep. Better let him alone.”

“He’s blind as a tick,” Mike said. They went out.

I got up and went to the balcony and looked out at the dancing in the

square. The world was not wheeling any more. It was just very clear and

bright, and inclined to blur at the edges. I washed, brushed my hair. I

looked strange to myself in the glass, and went down-stairs to the

dining-room.

“Here he is!” said Bill. “Good old Jake! I knew you wouldn’t pass out.”

“Hello, you old drunk,” Mike said.

“I got hungry and woke up.”

“Eat some soup,” Bill said.

The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six

people were missing.