Westward from a town by the Mouths of the Rhône, runs a road so
mathematically straight, so barometrically level, that it ranks among
the world’s measured miles and motorists use it for records.
I had attacked the distance several times, but always with a Mistral
blowing, or the unchancy cattle of those parts on the move. But once,
running from the East, into a high-piled, almost Egyptian, sunset,
there came a night which it would have been sin to have wasted. It was
warm with the breath of summer in advance; moonlit till the shadow of
every rounded pebble and pointed cypress wind-break lay solid on that
vast flat-floored waste; and my Mr. Leggatt, who had slipped out to
make sure, reported that the road-surface was unblemished.
“_Now_,” he suggested, “we might see what she’ll do under strict
road-conditions. She’s been pullin’ like the Blue de Luxe all day.
Unless I’m all off, it’s her night out.”
We arranged the trial for after dinner--thirty kilometres as near as
might be; and twenty-two of them without even a level crossing.
There sat beside me at table d’hôte an elderly, bearded Frenchman
wearing the rosette of by no means the lowest grade of the Legion of
Honour, who had arrived in a talkative Citroën. I gathered that he
had spent much of his life in the French Colonial Service in Annam
and Tonquin. When the War came, his years barring him from the front
line, he had supervised Chinese woodcutters who, with axe and dynamite,
deforested the centre of France for trench-props. He said my chauffeur
had told him that I contemplated an experiment. He was interested in
cars--had admired mine--would, in short, be greatly indebted to me if I
permitted him to assist as an observer. One could not well refuse; and,
knowing my Mr. Leggatt, it occurred to me there might also be a bet in
the background.
While he went to get his coat, I asked the proprietor his name.
“Voiron--Monsieur André Voiron,” was the reply. “And his business?”
“Mon Dieu! He is Voiron! He is all those things, there!” The proprietor
waved his hands at brilliant advertisements on the dining-room walls,
which declared that Voiron Frères dealt in wines, agricultural
implements, chemical manures, provisions and produce throughout that
part of the globe.
He said little for the first five minutes of our trip, and nothing at
all for the next ten--it being, as Leggatt had guessed, Esmeralda’s
night out. But, when her indicator climbed to a certain figure and held
there for three blinding kilometres, he expressed himself satisfied,
and proposed to me that we should celebrate the event at the hotel. “I
keep yonder,” said he, “a wine on which I should value your opinion.”
On our return, he disappeared for a few minutes, and I heard him
rumbling in a cellar. The proprietor presently invited me to the
dining-room, where, beneath one frugal light, a table had been set with
local dishes of renown. There was, too, a bottle beyond most known
sizes, marked black on red, with a date. Monsieur Voiron opened it, and
we drank to the health of my car. The velvety, perfumed liquor, between
fawn and topaz, neither too sweet nor too dry, creamed in its generous
glass. But I knew no wine composed of the whispers of angels’ wings,
the breath of Eden and the foam and pulse of Youth renewed. So I asked
what it might be.
“It is champagne,” he said gravely.
“Then what have I been drinking all my life?”
“If you were lucky, before the War, and paid thirty shillings a bottle,
it is possible you may have drunk one of our better-class _tisanes_.”
“And where does one get this?”
“Here, I am happy to say. Elsewhere, perhaps, it is not so easy. We
growers exchange these real wines among ourselves.”
I bowed my head in admiration, surrender, and joy. There stood the
most ample bottle, and it was not yet eleven o’clock. Doors locked and
shutters banged throughout the establishment. Some last servant yawned
on his way to bed. Monsieur Voiron opened a window and the moonlight
flooded in from a small pebbled court outside. One could almost hear
the town of Chambres breathing in its first sleep. Presently, there was
a thick noise in the air, the passing of feet and hooves, lowings, and
a stifled bark or two. Dust rose over the courtyard wall, followed by
the strong smell of cattle.
“They are moving some beasts,” said Monsieur Voiron, cocking an
ear. “Mine, I think. Yes, I hear Christophe. Our beasts do not like
automobiles--so we move at night. You do not know our country--the
Crau, here, or the Camargue? I was--I am now, again--of it. All France
is good; but this is the best.” He spoke, as only a Frenchman can, of
his own loved part of his own lovely land.
“For myself, if I were not so involved in all these affairs,” he
pointed to the advertisements--“I would live on our farm with my
cattle, and worship them like a Hindu. You know our cattle of the
Camargue, Monsieur. No? It is not an acquaintance to rush upon lightly.
There are no beasts like them. They have a mentality superior to that
of others. They graze and they ruminate, by choice, facing our Mistral,
which is more than some automobiles will do. Also they have in them
the potentiality of thought--and when cattle think--I have seen what
arrives.”
“Are they so clever as all that?” I asked idly.
“Monsieur, when your sportif chauffeur camouflaged your limousine so
that she resembled one of your Army lorries, I would not believe her
capacities. I bet him--ah--two to one--she would not touch ninety
kilometres. It was proved that she could. I can give you no proof, but
will you believe me if I tell you what a beast who thinks can achieve?”
“After the War,” said I spaciously, “everything is credible.”
“That is true! Everything inconceivable has happened; but still we
learn nothing and we believe nothing. When I was a child in my father’s
house--before I became a Colonial Administrator--my interest and my
affection were among our cattle. We of the old rock live here--have
you seen?--in big farms like castles. Indeed, some of them may have
been Saracenic. The barns group round them--great white-walled barns,
and yards solid as our houses. One gate shuts all. It is a world
apart; an administration of all that concerns beasts. It was there I
learned something about cattle. You see, they are our playthings in
the Camargue and the Crau. The boy measures his strength against the
calf that butts him in play among the manure-heaps. He moves in and out
among the cows, who are--not so amiable. He rides with the herdsmen
in the open to shift the herds. Sooner or later, he meets as bulls
the little calves that knocked him over. So it was with me--till it
became necessary that I should go to our Colonies.” He laughed. “Very
necessary. That is a good time in youth, Monsieur, when one does
these things which shock our parents. Why is it always Papa who is so
shocked and has never heard of such things--and Mamma who supplies the
excuses?... And when my brother--my elder who stayed and created the
business--begged me to return and help him, I resigned my Colonial
career gladly enough. I returned to our own lands, and my well-loved,
wicked white and yellow cattle of the Camargue and the Crau. My Faith,
I could talk of them all night, for this stuff unlocks the heart,
without making repentance in the morning.... Yes! It was after the War
that this happened. There was a calf, among Heaven knows how many of
ours--a bull-calf--an infant indistinguishable from his companions.
He was sick, and he had been taken up with his mother into the big
farmyard at home with us. Naturally the children of our herdsmen
practised on him from the first. It is in their blood. The Spaniards
make a cult of bull-fighting. Our little devils down here bait bulls
as automatically as the English child kicks or throws balls. This
calf would chase them with his eyes open, like a cow when she hunts
a man. They would take refuge behind our tractors and wine-carts in
the centre of the yard: he would chase them in and out as a dog hunts
rats. More than that, he would study their psychology, his eyes in
their eyes. Yes, he watched their faces to divine which way they would
run. He himself, also, would pretend sometimes to charge directly at
a boy. Then he would wheel right or left--one could never tell--and
knock over some child pressed against a wall who thought himself safe.
After this, he would stand over him, knowing that his companions must
come to his aid; and when they were all together, waving their jackets
across his eyes and pulling his tail, he would scatter them--how he
would scatter them! He could kick too, sideways like a cow. He knew
his ranges as well as our gunners, and he was as quick on his feet as
our Carpentier. I observed him often. Christophe--the man who passed
just now--our chief herdsman, who had taught me to ride with our beasts
when I was ten--Christophe told me that he was descended from a yellow
cow of those days that had chased us once into the marshes. ‘He kicks
just like her,’ said Christophe. ‘He can side-kick as he jumps. Have
you seen, too, that he is not deceived by the jacket when a boy waves
it? He uses it to find the boy. They think they are feeling him. He
is feeling them always. He thinks, that one.’ I had come to the same
conclusion. Yes--the creature was a thinker along the lines necessary
to his sport; and he was a humorist also, like so many natural
murderers. One knows the type among beasts as well as among men. It
possesses a curious truculent mirth--almost indecent but infallibly
significant----”
Monsieur Voiron replenished our glasses with the great wine that went
better at each descent.
“They kept him for some time in the yards to practise upon. Naturally
he became a little brutal; so Christophe turned him out to learn
manners among his equals in the grazing lands, where the Camargue joins
the Crau. How old was he then? About eight or nine months, I think. We
met again a few months later--he and I. I was riding one of our little
half-wild horses, along a road of the Crau, when I found myself almost
unseated. It was he! He had hidden himself behind a wind-break till
we passed, and had then charged my horse from behind. Yes, he had
deceived even my little horse! But I recognised him. I gave him the
whip across the nose, and I said: ‘Apis, for this thou goest to Arles!
It was unworthy of thee, between us two.’ But that creature had no
shame. He went away laughing, like an Apache. If he had dismounted me,
I do not think it is I who would have laughed--yearling as he was.”
“Why did you want to send him to Arles?” I asked.
“For the bull-ring. When your charming tourists leave us, we institute
our little amusements there. Not a real bull-fight, you understand,
but young bulls with padded horns, and our boys from hereabouts and in
the city, go to play with them. Naturally, before we send them we try
them in our yards at home. So we brought up Apis from his pastures.
He knew at once that he was among the friends of his youth--he almost
shook hands with them--and he submitted like an angel to padding his
horns. He investigated the carts and tractors in the yards, to choose
his lines of defence and attack. And then--he attacked with an _élan_,
and he defended with a tenacity and forethought that delighted us. In
truth, we were so pleased that I fear we trespassed upon his patience.
We desired him to repeat himself, which no true artist will tolerate.
But he gave us fair warning. He went out to the centre of the yard,
where there was some dry earth; he kneeled down and--you have seen a
calf whose horns fret him thrusting and rooting into a bank? He did
just that, very deliberately, till he had rubbed the pads off his
horns. Then he rose, dancing on those wonderful feet that twinkled, and
he said: ‘Now, my friends, the buttons are off the foils. Who begins?’
We understood. We finished at once. He was turned out again on the
pastures till it should be time to amuse them at our little metropolis.
But, some time before he went to Arles--yes, I think I have it
correctly--Christophe, who had been out on the Crau, informed me that
Apis had assassinated a young bull who had given signs of developing
into a rival. That happens, of course, and our herdsmen should prevent
it. But Apis had killed in his own style--at dusk, from the ambush of
a wind-break--by an oblique charge from behind which knocked the other
over. He had then disembowelled him. All very possible, _but_--the
murder accomplished--Apis went to the bank of a wind-break, knelt,
and carefully, as he had in our yard, cleaned his horns in the earth.
Christophe, who had never seen such a thing, at once borrowed (do you
know, it is most efficacious when taken that way?) some Holy Water from
our little chapel in those pastures, sprinkled Apis (whom it did not
affect), and rode in to tell me. It was obvious that a thinker of that
bull’s type would also be meticulous in his toilette; so, when he was
sent to Arles, I warned our consignees to exercise caution with him.
Happily, the change of scene, the music, the general attention, and the
meeting again with old friends--all our bad boys attended--agreeably
distracted him. He became for the time a pure _farceur_ again; but his
wheelings, his rushes, his rat-huntings were more superb than ever.
There was in them now, you understand, a breadth of technique that
comes of reasoned art, and, above all, the passion that arrives after
experience. Oh, he had learned, out there on the Crau! At the end of
his little turn, he was, according to local rules, to be handled in all
respects except for the sword, which was a stick, as a professional
bull who must die. He was manœuvred into, or he posed himself in, the
proper attitude; made his rush; received the point on his shoulder and
then--turned about and cantered toward the door by which he had entered
the arena. He said to the world: ‘My friends, the representation is
ended. I thank you for your applause. I go to repose myself.’ But our
Arlesians, who are--not so clever as some, demanded an encore, and
Apis was headed back again. We others from his country, we knew what
would happen. He went to the centre of the ring, kneeled, and, slowly,
with full parade, plunged his horns alternately in the dirt till the
pads came off. Christophe shouts: ‘Leave him alone, you straight-nosed
imbeciles! Leave him before you must.’ But they required emotion; for
Rome has always debauched her loved Provincia with bread and circuses.
It was given. Have you, Monsieur, ever seen a servant, with pan and
broom, sweeping round the baseboard of a room? In a half-minute Apis
has them all swept out and over the barrier. Then he demands once more
that the door shall be opened to him. It is opened and he retires as
though--which truly, is the case--loaded with laurels.”
Monsieur Voiron refilled the glasses, and allowed himself a cigarette,
which he puffed for some time.
“And afterwards?” I said.
“I am arranging it in my mind. It is difficult to do it justice.
Afterwards--yes, afterwards--Apis returned to his pastures and his
mistresses and I to my business. I am no longer a scandalous old
‘sportif’ in shirtsleeves howling encouragement to the yellow son of a
cow. I revert to Voiron Frères--wines, chemical manures, _et cetera_.
And next year, through some chicane which I have not the leisure to
unravel, and also, thanks to our patriarchal system of paying our older
men out of the increase of the herds, old Christophe possesses himself
of Apis. Oh, yes, he proves it through descent from a certain cow that
my father had given his father before the Republic. Beware, Monsieur,
of the memory of the illiterate man! An ancestor of Christophe had
been a soldier under our Soult against your Beresford, near Bayonne. He
fell into the hands of Spanish guerrillas. Christophe and his wife used
to tell me the details on certain Saints’ Days when I was a child. Now,
as compared with our recent war, Soult’s campaign and retreat across
the Bidassoa----”
“But did you allow Christophe just to annex the bull?” I demanded.
“You do not know Christophe. He had sold him to the Spaniards before he
informed me. The Spaniards pay in coin--douros of very pure silver. Our
peasants mistrust our paper. You know the saying: ‘A thousand francs
paper; eight hundred metal, and the cow is yours.’ Yes, Christophe
sold Apis, who was then two and a half years old, and to Christophe’s
knowledge thrice at least an assassin.”
“How was that?” I said.
“Oh, his own kind only; and always, Christophe told me, by the same
oblique rush from behind, the same sideways overthrow, and the same
swift disembowelment, followed by this levitical cleaning of the horns.
In human life he would have kept a manicurist--this Minotaur. And so,
Apis disappears from our country. That does not trouble me. I know in
due time I shall be advised. Why? Because, in this land, Monsieur, not
a hoof moves between Berre and the Saintes Maries without the knowledge
of specialists such as Christophe. The beasts are the substance, and
the drama of their lives to them. So when Christophe tells me, a little
before Easter Sunday, that Apis makes his début in the bull-ring of
a small Catalan town on the road to Barcelona, it is only to pack my
car and trundle there across the frontier with him. The place lacked
importance and manufactures, but it had produced a matador of some
reputation, who was condescending to show his art in his native town.
They were even running one special train to the place. Now our French
railway system is only execrable, but the Spanish----”
“You went down by road, didn’t you?” said I.
“Naturally. It was not too good. Villamarti was the matador’s name.
He proposed to kill two bulls for the honour of his birthplace. Apis,
Christophe told me, would be his second. It was an interesting trip,
and that little city by the sea was ravishing. Their bull-ring dates
from the middle of the seventeenth century. It is full of feeling.
The ceremonial too--when the horsemen enter and ask the Mayor in his
box to throw down the keys of the bull-ring--that was exquisitely
conceived. You know, if the keys are caught in the horseman’s hat, it
is considered a good omen. They were perfectly caught. Our seats were
in the front row beside the gates where the bulls enter, so we saw
everything.
“Villamarti’s first bull was not too badly killed. The second
matador, whose name escapes me, killed his without distinction--a
foil to Villamarti. And the third, Chisto, a laborious, middle-aged
professional who had never risen beyond a certain dull competence, was
equally of the background. Oh, they are as jealous as the girls of the
Comédie Française, these matadors! Villamarti’s troupe stood ready
for his second bull. The gates opened, and we saw Apis, beautifully
balanced on his feet, peer coquettishly round the corner, as though he
were at home. A picador--a mounted man with the long lance-goad--stood
near the barrier on his right. He had not even troubled to turn his
horse, for the capeadors--the men with the cloaks--were advancing to
play Apis--to feel his psychology and intentions, according to the
rules that are made for bulls who do not think.... I did not realise
the murder before it was accomplished! The wheel, the rush, the oblique
charge from behind, the fall of horse and man were simultaneous.
Apis leaped the horse, with whom he had no quarrel, and alighted,
all four feet together (it was enough), between the man’s shoulders,
changed his beautiful feet on the carcass, and was away, pretending to
fall nearly on his nose. Do you follow me? In that instant, by that
stumble, he produced the impression that his adorable assassination
was a mere bestial blunder. Then, Monsieur, I began to comprehend
that it was an artist we had to deal with. He did not stand over the
body to draw the rest of the troupe. He chose to reserve that trick.
He let the attendants bear out the dead, and went on to amuse himself
among the capeadors. Now to Apis, trained among our children in the
yards, the cloak was simply a guide to the boy behind it. He pursued,
you understand, the person, not the propaganda--the proprietor, not
the journal. If a third of our electors of France were as wise, my
friend!... But it was done leisurely, with humour and a touch of
truculence. He romped after one man’s cloak as a clumsy dog might
do, but I observed that he kept the man on his terrible left side.
Christophe whispered to me: ‘Wait for his mother’s kick. When he has
made the fellow confident it will arrive.’ It arrived in the middle
of a gambol. My God! He lashed out in the air as he frisked. The
man dropped like a sack, lifted one hand a little towards his head,
and--that was all. So you see, a body was again at his disposition;
a second time the cloaks ran up to draw him off, but a second time,
Apis refused his grand scene. A second time he acted that his murder
was accident and--he convinced his audience! It was as though he had
knocked over a bridge-gate in the marshes by mistake. Unbelievable? I
saw it.”
The memory sent Monsieur Voiron again to the champagne, and I
accompanied him.
“But Apis was not the sole artist present. They say Villamarti comes
of a family of actors. I saw him regard Apis with a new eye. He, too,
began to understand. He took his cloak and moved out to play him
before they should bring on another picador. He had his reputation.
Perhaps Apis knew it. Perhaps Villamarti reminded him of some boy with
whom he had practised at home. At any rate Apis permitted it--up to a
certain point; but he did not allow Villamarti the stage. He cramped
him throughout. He dived and plunged clumsily and slowly, but always
with menace and always closing in. We could see that the man was
conforming to the bull--not the bull to the man; for Apis was playing
him towards the centre of the ring, and, in a little while--I watched
his face--Villamarti knew it. But I could not fathom the creature’s
motive. ‘Wait,’ said old Christophe. ‘He wants that picador on the
white horse yonder. When he reaches his proper distance he will get
him. Villamarti is his cover. He used me once that way.’ And so it
was, my friend! With the clang of one of our own Seventy-fives, Apis
dismissed Villamarti with his chest--breasted him over--and had arrived
at his objective near the barrier. The same oblique charge; the head
carried low for the sweep of the horns; the immense sideways fall of
the horse, broken-legged and half-paralysed; the senseless man on the
ground and--behold Apis between them, backed against the barrier--his
right covered by the horse; his left by the body of the man at his
feet. The simplicity of it! Lacking the carts and tractors of his
early parade-grounds he, being a genius, had extemporised with the
materials at hand, and dug himself in. The troupe closed up again,
their left wing broken by the kicking horse, their right immobilised
by the man’s body which Apis bestrode with significance. Villamarti
almost threw himself between the horns, but--it was more an appeal than
an attack. Apis refused him. He held his base. A picador was sent at
him--necessarily from the front, which alone was open. Apis charged--he
who, till then, you realise, had not used the horn! The horse went over
backwards, the man half beneath him. Apis halted, hooked him under
the heart, and threw him to the barrier. We heard his head crack, but
he was dead before he hit the wood. There was no demonstration from
the audience. They, also, had begun to realise this Foch among bulls!
The arena occupied itself again with the dead. Two of the troupe
irresolutely tried to play him--God knows in what hope!--but he moved
out to the centre of the ring. ‘Look!’ said Christophe. ‘Now he goes to
clean himself. That always frightened me.’ He knelt down; he began to
clean his horns. The earth was hard. He worried at it in an ecstasy of
absorption. As he laid his head along and rattled his ears, it was as
though he were interrogating the Devils themselves upon their secrets,
and always saying impatiently: ‘Yes, I know that--and _that_--and
_that_! Tell me more--_more_!’ In the silence that covered us, a woman
cried: ‘He digs a grave! Oh, Saints, he digs a grave!’ Some others
echoed this--not loudly--as a wave echoes in a grotto of the sea.
“And when his horns were cleaned, he rose up and studied poor
Villamarti’s troupe, eyes in eyes, one by one, with the gravity of an
equal in intellect and the remote and merciless resolution of a master
in his art. This was more terrifying than his toilette.”
“And they--Villamarti’s men?” I asked.
“Like the audience, were dominated. They had ceased to posture, or
stamp, or address insults to him. They conformed to him. The two other
matadors stared. Only Chisto, the oldest, broke silence with some
call or other, and Apis turned his head towards him. Otherwise he was
isolated, immobile--sombre--meditating on those at his mercy. Ah!
“For some reason the trumpet sounded for the _banderillas_--those gay
hooked darts that are planted in the shoulders of bulls who do not
think, after their neck-muscles are tired by lifting horses. When such
bulls feel the pain, they check for an instant, and, in that instant,
the men step gracefully aside. Villamarti’s banderillero answered the
trumpet mechanically--like one condemned. He stood out, poised the
darts and stammered the usual patter of invitation.... And after? I
do not assert that Apis shrugged his shoulders, but he reduced the
episode to its lowest elements, as could only a bull of Gaul. With
his truculence was mingled always--owing to the shortness of his
tail--a certain Rabelaisian abandon, especially when viewed from the
rear. Christophe had often commented upon it. Now, Apis brought that
quality into play. He circulated round that boy, forcing him to break
up his beautiful poses. He studied him from various angles, like an
incompetent photographer. He presented to him every portion of his
anatomy except his shoulders. At intervals he feigned to run in upon
him. My God, he was cruel! But his motive was obvious. He was playing
for a laugh from the spectators which should synchronise with the
fracture of the human morale. It was achieved. The boy turned and ran
towards the barrier. Apis was on him before the laugh ceased; passed
him; headed him--what do I say?--herded him off to the left, his
horns beside and a little in front of his chest: he did not intend
him to escape into a refuge. Some of the troupe would have closed
in, but Villamarti cried: ‘If he wants him he will take him. Stand!’
They stood. Whether the boy slipped or Apis nosed him over I could
not see. But he dropped, sobbing. Apis halted like a car with four
brakes, struck a pose, smelt him very completely and turned away. It
was dismissal more ignominious than degradation at the head of one’s
battalion. The representation was finished. Remained only for Apis to
clear his stage of the subordinate characters.
“Ah! His gesture then! He gave a dramatic start--this Cyrano of the
Camargue--as though he was aware of them for the first time. He moved.
All their beautiful breeches twinkled for an instant along the top
of the barrier. He held the stage alone! But Christophe and I, we
trembled! For, observe, he had now involved himself in a stupendous
drama of which he only could supply the third act. And, except for an
audience on the razor-edge of emotion, he had exhausted his material.
Molière himself--we have forgotten, my friend, to drink to the health
of that great soul--might have been at a loss. And Tragedy is but a
step behind Failure. We could see the four or five Civil Guards, who
are sent always to keep order, fingering the breeches of their rifles.
They were but waiting a word from the Mayor to fire on him, as they do
sometimes at a bull who leaps the barrier among the spectators. They
would, of course, have killed or wounded several people--but that would
not have saved Apis.”
Monsieur Voiron drowned the thought at once, and wiped his beard.
“At that moment Fate--the Genius of France, if you will--sent to
assist in the incomparable finale, none other than Chisto, the
eldest, and, I should have said (but never again will I judge!) the
least inspired of all; mediocrity itself but, at heart--and it is
the heart that conquers always, my friend--at heart an artist. He
descended stiffly into the arena, alone and assured. Apis regarded
him, his eyes in his eyes. The man took stance, with his cloak, and
called to the bull as to an equal: ‘Now, Señor, we will show these
honourable caballeros something together.’ He advanced thus against
this thinker who at a plunge--a kick--a thrust--could, we all knew,
have extinguished him. My dear friend, I wish I could convey to you
something of the unaffected bonhomie, the humour, the delicacy, the
consideration bordering on respect even, with which Apis, the supreme
artist, responded to this invitation. It was the Master, wearied after
a strenuous hour in the atelier, unbuttoned and at ease with some
not inexpert but limited disciple. The telepathy was instantaneous
between them. And for good reason! Christophe said to me: ‘All’s well.
That Chisto began among the bulls. I was sure of it when I heard him
call just now. He has been a herdsman. He’ll pull it off.’ There was
a little feeling and adjustment, at first, for mutual distances and
allowances.
“Oh, yes! And here occurred a gross impertinence of Villamarti. He had,
after an interval, followed Chisto--to retrieve his reputation. My
Faith! I can conceive the elder Dumas slamming his door on an intruder
precisely as Apis did. He raced Villamarti into the nearest refuge at
once. He stamped his feet outside it, and he snorted: ‘Go! I am engaged
with an artist.’ Villamarti went--his reputation left behind for ever.
“Apis returned to Chisto saying: ‘Forgive the interruption. I am not
always master of my time, but you were about to observe, my dear
confrère...?’ Then the play began. Out of compliment to Chisto, Apis
chose as his objective (every bull varies in this respect) the inner
edge of the cloak--that nearest to the man’s body. This allows but a
few millimetres clearance in charging. But Apis trusted himself as
Chisto trusted him, and, this time, he conformed to the man, with
inimitable judgment and temper. He allowed himself to be played into
the shadow or the sun, as the delighted audience demanded. He raged
enormously; he feigned defeat; he despaired in statuesque abandon,
and thence flashed into fresh paroxysms of wrath--but always with the
detachment of the true artist who knows he is but the vessel of an
emotion whence others, not he, must drink. And never once did he forget
that honest Chisto’s cloak was to him the gauge by which to spare even
a hair on the skin. He inspired Chisto too. My God! His youth returned
to that meritorious beef-sticker--the desire, the grace, and the
beauty of his early dreams. One could almost see that girl of the past
for whom he was rising, rising to these present heights of skill and
daring. It was his hour too--a miraculous hour of dawn returned to gild
the sunset. All he knew was at Apis’ disposition. Apis acknowledged
it with all that he had learned at home, at Arles and in his lonely
murders on our grazing-grounds. He flowed round Chisto like a river
of death--round his knees, leaping at his shoulders, kicking just
clear of one side or the other of his head; behind his back hissing
as he shaved by; and once or twice--inimitable!--he reared wholly up
before him while Chisto slipped back from beneath the avalanche of that
instructed body. Those two, my dear friend, held five thousand people
dumb with no sound but of their breathings--regular as pumps. It was
unbearable. Beast and man realised together that we needed a change of
note--a _détente_. They relaxed to pure buffoonery. Chisto fell back
and talked to him outrageously. Apis pretended he had never heard such
language. The audience howled with delight. Chisto slapped him; he
took liberties with his short tail, to the end of which he clung while
Apis pirouetted; he played about him in all postures; he had become
the herdsman again--gross, careless, brutal, but comprehending. Yet
Apis was always the more consummate clown. All that time (Christophe
and I saw it) Apis drew off towards the gates of the _toril_ where so
many bulls enter but--have you ever heard of one that returned? _We_
knew that Apis knew that as he had saved Chisto, so Chisto would save
him. Life is sweet to us all; to the artist who lives many lives in
one, sweetest. Chisto did not fail him. At the last, when none could
laugh any longer, the man threw his cape across the bull’s back, his
arm round his neck. He flung up a hand at the gate, as Villamarti,
young and commanding but _not_ a herdsman, might have raised it, and he
cried: ‘Gentlemen, open to me and my honourable little donkey.’ They
opened--I have misjudged Spaniards in my time!--those gates opened to
the man and the bull together, and closed behind them. And then? From
the Mayor to the Guarda Civile they went mad for five minutes, till
the trumpets blew and the fifth bull rushed out--an unthinking black
Andalusian. I suppose some one killed him. My friend, my very dear
friend, to whom I have opened my heart, I confess that I did not watch.
Christophe and I we were weeping together like children of the same
Mother. Shall we drink to Her?”