BORN FOR THE BULL-RING
When Senora Angustias was bereft of her husband, Senor Juan Gallardo,
the well known cobbler established in a _portal_ in the ward of the
Feria, she wept with the disconsolateness due the event, but at the same
time, in the depths of her soul, she felt the satisfaction of one who
rests after a long journey, freed from an overwhelming burden.
"Poor fellow, joy of my heart! May God keep him in His glory. So good!
So industrious!"
During twenty years of life together, he had not caused her greater
sorrows than those the rest of the women of the ward had to bear. Of the
three _pesetas_ he averaged as a result of his labor he handed over one
to Senora Angustias for the support of the house and family, using the
other two for personal entertainment and for keeping up appearances
among his friends. He was obliged to respond to the attentions of his
companions when they invited him to a convivial glass, and the famous
Andalusian wine, since it is the glory of God, costs dear. Also it was
inevitable that he should go to see the bulls, because a man who does
not drink nor attend bull-fights--why is he in the world?
Senora Angustias with her two children, Encarnacion and little Juan, had
to sharpen her wits and develop numerous talents in order to keep the
family together. She worked as a servant in the houses nearest her
ward, sewed for the women of the neighborhood, sold clothing and
trinkets for a certain brokeress, a friend of hers, and made cigarettes
for the gentlemen, recalling her youthful aptitude when Senor Juan, an
enthusiastic and favored lover, used to come and wait for her at the
door of the Tobacco Factory.
Never could she complain of infidelity or ill-treatment on the part of
her husband. On Saturdays when the cobbler used to come home drunk in
the late hours of the night supported by his friends, joy and tenderness
came with him. Senora Angustias had to drag him into the house, for he
was determined to remain outside the door clapping his hands and
intoning, with slobbery voice, tender love songs dedicated to his
corpulent companion. And when the door was at last closed behind him,
depriving the neighbors of a source of entertainment, Senor Juan, in a
state of sentimental drunkenness, insisted on seeing the sleeping
children; he kissed them, wetting their little faces with great
tear-drops, and repeated his verses in honor of Senora Angustias
(Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!) till finally the good wife
was compelled to cease frowning and to laugh while she undressed him and
managed him as if he were a sick child.
This was his only vice. Poor fellow! There was not a sign of women or of
gambling. His self-esteem which made him go well dressed while the
family went in rags, and his unequal division of the products of his
labor, were both compensated by generous incentives. Senora Angustias
recollected with pride the great feast days when Juan had her put on her
Manila shawl, her wedding _mantilla_, and, with the children walking in
advance, he strode at her side with white Cordovan hat and silver
handled cane, taking a walk along Delicias with the same air as any
shopkeeper's family from Sierpes Street. On cheap bull-fight days he
courted her pompously before going to the plaza, offering her glasses of
wine at La Campana or at a _cafe_ in the New Plaza. This happy time was
now but a faint and pleasant memory in the recollection of the poor
woman.
Senor Juan fell ill of phthisis and for two years the wife had to care
for him, making still greater exertions in her industries to compensate
for the lack of the _peseta_ her husband used to turn over to her. At
last he died in the hospital, resigned to his fate, convinced that
existence was of no value without Andalusian wine and without bulls, and
his last look of love and gratitude was for his wife, as if he would
call out with his eyes: "Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!"
When Senora Angustias was left alone her position did not change for the
worse,--rather for the better. She enjoyed greater liberty in her
movements, freed from the man who for the last two years had weighed
more heavily upon her than the rest of the family. Being an energetic
woman and of prompt decision, she immediately marked out a career for
her children. Encarnacion, who was now sixteen, went to the Tobacco
Factory, where her mother was able to introduce her, thanks to her
relations with certain friends of her youth who had become overseers.
Juanillo, who as a lad had passed his days in the _portal_ of the Feria
watching his father work, should be a shoemaker, according to the will
of Senora Angustias. She took him out of school, where he had learned
to read but poorly, and at twelve he became an apprentice to one of the
best shoemakers in Seville.
And now the martyrdom of the poor woman began.
Ah, that boy! Son of such honorable parents! Almost every day, instead
of going to his master's shop he went to the slaughter-house with
certain rascals who had their meeting place on a bench in the Alameda of
Hercules and who delighted to flaunt a cape under the nose of young
bullocks for the entertainment of herders and butchers, generally
getting upset and trampled upon. Senora Angustias, who often toiled far
into the night, needle in hand, so that the boy might go to the shop
neat, with his clothing clean and mended, met him at the door when he
came home with his pantaloons torn, his jacket dirty, and his face
covered with lumps and scratches, afraid to enter yet without courage to
flee owing to his hunger.
The welts made by his mother's blows and the marks of the broom-handle
were added to the bruises of the treacherous bullocks, but the hero of
the slaughter-house suffered them all, provided he did not lack his
daily rations. "Beat me, but give me something to eat." And with his
appetite awakened by violent exercise, he devoured the hard bread, the
spoiled beans, the stale cod-fish, all the cheap food the diligent woman
sought in the shops in the effort to maintain the family on her scanty
earnings.
Toiling all day scrubbing floors, only now and then did she have an
afternoon in which she could concern herself with her son's welfare and
go to the cobbler's to learn of the progress of the apprentice. When she
returned from the shoe-maker's shop she was puffing and blowing with
anger and resolved upon terrible punishments to correct the vagabond.
Most of the time he failed to present himself at the shop at all. He
spent the morning at the slaughter-house and in the afternoons he formed
one of the group of vagabonds collected at the entrance of Sierpes
Street, admiring at close range the bull-fighters out of work who
gathered in Campana Street, dressed in new clothes, with resplendent
hats but with no more than a _peseta_ in their pockets, though each one
was bragging of his exploits.
Little Juan contemplated them as if they were beings of marvellous
superiority, envying their fine carriage and the boldness with which
they flattered the women. The idea that each of these had at home a suit
of silk embroidered with gold, and that with it on he strode before the
multitude to the sound of music, produced a thrill of respect.
The son of Senora Angustias was known as the Little Cobbler among his
ragged friends, and he showed satisfaction at having a nickname, as have
nearly all the great men who appear in the ring. A foundation must be
laid somewhere. He wore around his neck a red handkerchief which he had
pilfered from his sister, and from beneath his cap his hair fell over
his ears in thick locks which he carefully plastered down. He wore his
plaited blouses of drill tucked into his trousers, which were ancient
relics of his father's wardrobe made over by Senora Angustias; he
insisted these must be high in the waist with the legs wide and the hips
well tightened, and wept with humiliation when his mother would not
yield to these exactions.
A cape! If only he might possess a fighting cape and not have to beg
from other more fortunate boys the loan of the coveted "rag" for a few
minutes! In a poor little room at home lay an old forgotten empty
mattress case. Senora Angustias had sold the wool in days of stress. The
Little Cobbler spent a morning locked in the room, taking advantage of
the absence of his mother who was working as a servant in a priest's
house.
With the ingenuity of a shipwrecked mariner on a desert isle who, thrown
upon his own resources, must construct everything necessary to his
existence, he cut a fighting cape from the damp and half-frayed cloth.
Then he boiled in a pot a handful of red aniline bought at a druggist's,
and dipped the ancient cotton in this dye. Little Juan admired his
work--a cape of the most vivid scarlet that would arouse the greatest
envy at the bull-baiting in the surrounding towns! Nothing remained but
to dry it and he hung it in the sun beside the neighbor women's white
clothes. The wind blew the dripping cloth about, bespattering the
nearest pieces, until a chorus of curses and threats, clenched fists,
and mouths that pronounced the ugliest of words against him and his
mother, obliged the Little Cobbler to grasp his mantle of glory and take
to his heels, his hands and face dyed red as though he had just
committed a murder.
Senora Angustias, a strong, corpulent, be-whiskered woman who was not
afraid of men, and inspired the respect of women for her energetic
resolutions, was disheartened and weak in the presence of her son. What
could she do? Her hands had pummelled every part of the boy's body;
brooms were broken on him without beneficial results. That little imp
had, according to her, the flesh of a dog. Accustomed outside of the
house to the tremendous butting of the steers, to the cruel trampling
of the cows, to the clubs of herders and butchers who beat the band of
vagabond bull-fighters without compassion, his mother's blows seemed to
him a natural event, a continuation of his life outside prolonged inside
the home, and he accepted them without the least intention of mending
his ways, as a fee which he must pay in exchange for his sustenance,
chewing the hard bread with hungry enjoyment, while the maternal
maledictions and blows rained on his back.
Scarcely was his hunger appeased when he fled from the house, taking
advantage of the freedom in which Senora Angustias left him when she
absented herself on her round of duties.
In Campana Street, that venerable haunt of the bull-fighters where the
gossip of the great doings of the profession circulated, he received
information about his companions that gave him tremors of enthusiasm.
"Little Cobbler, a bull-fight to-morrow."
The towns in the province celebrated the feasts of their patron saints
with cape-teasing of bulls which had been rejected from the great
plazas, and to these the young bull-fighters went in the hope of being
able to say on their return that they had held the cape in the glorious
plazas of Aznalcollar, Bollullos, or Mairena. They started on the
journey at night with the cape over the shoulder if it were summer, or
wrapped in it if winter, their stomachs empty, their heads full of
visions of bulls and glory.
If the trip were of several days' journey they camped in the open, or
they were admitted through charity to the hayloft of an inn. Alas for
the grapes, melons, and figs they found by the way in those happy
times! Their only fear was that another band, another _cuadrilla_,
possessed of the same idea, would present itself in the _pueblo_ and set
up an opposition.
When they reached the end of their journey, with their eyebrows and
mouths full of dust, tired and foot-sore from the march, they presented
themselves to the alcalde and the boldest among them who performed the
functions of director talked of the merits of his men. All considered
themselves happy if the municipal generosity sheltered them in a stable
of the hostelry and regaled them with a pot of stew in addition, which
they would clean up instantly. In the village plaza enclosed by wagons
and boards, they let loose aged bulls, regular forts of flesh covered
with scabs and scars, with enormous saw-edged horns; cattle which had
been fought many years in all the feasts of the province; venerable
animals that "understood the game," such was their malice. Accustomed to
one continual bull-fight they were in the secret of the tricks of the
contest.
The youths of the _pueblo_ pricked on the beasts from their place of
safety and the people longed for an object of diversion greater than the
bull--in the bull-fighters from Seville. These waved their capes, their
legs trembling, their courage borne down by the weight of their
stomachs. A tumble, and then great clamor from the public! When one in
sudden terror took refuge behind the palisades, rural barbarity received
him with insults, beating the hands clutching at the wood, pounding him
on the legs to make him jump back into the ring. "Get back there,
poltroon! Fraud, to turn your face from the bull."
At times one of the young swordsmen was borne out of the ring by four
companions, pale as a sheet of white paper, his eyes glassy, his head
fallen, his breast like a broken bellows. The veterinary came, quieting
them all on seeing no blood. The boy was suffering from the shock of
being thrown some yards and falling on the ground like a rag torn from a
piece of clothing. Again it was the agony of having been stepped on by a
beast of enormous weight. A bucket of water was thrown on his head and
then, when he recovered his senses, they treated him to a long drink of
brandy. A prince could not be better cared for!
To the ring again! And when the herder had no more bulls to let out and
night was drawing near, two of the _cuadrilla_ grasped the best cape
belonging to the society and holding it by its edges went from one
viewing stand to another soliciting a contribution. Copper coins fell
upon the red cloth in proportion to the pleasure the strangers had given
the country people; and, the bull-baiting ended, they started on their
return to the city, knowing that they had exhausted their credit at the
inn. Often they fought on the way over the distribution of the pieces of
copper which they carried in a knotted handkerchief. Then the rest of
the week, they recounted their deeds before the fascinated eyes of their
companions who had not been members of the expedition.
Once Senora Angustias spent an entire week without hearing from her son.
At last she heard vague rumors of his having been wounded in a
bull-scrimmage in the town of Tocina. _Dios mio_! Where might that town
be? How reach it? She gave up her son for dead, she wept for him, she
longed to go; and then as she was getting ready to start on her
journey, she saw little Juan coming home, pale, weak, but talking with
manly joy of his accident.
It was nothing--a horn-stab in one thigh; a wound a fraction of an inch
deep. And in the shamelessness of triumph he wanted to show it to the
neighbors, affirming that a finger could be thrust into it without
reaching its end. He was proud of the stench of iodoform that he shed as
he walked, and he talked of the attention they had shown him in that
town, which he considered the finest in Spain. The wealthiest citizens,
one might say the aristocracy, interested themselves in his case, the
alcalde had been to see him and later paid his way home. He still had
three _duros_ in his pocket, which he handed to his mother with the
generosity of a great man. So much glory at fourteen! His satisfaction
was yet greater when some genuine bull-fighters in Campana Street fixed
their attention on the boy and asked him how his wound was getting
along.
His companion in poverty was Chiripa, a boy of the same age, with a
small body and malicious eyes, without father or mother, who had tramped
about Seville ever since he had attained the use of his faculties.
Chiripa was a master of the roving life and had travelled over the
world. The two boys started on a journey empty of pocket, without other
equipment than their capes, miserable cast-offs acquired for a few
_reales_ from a second-hand clothing store.
They clambered cautiously into trains and hid under seats. Often they
were surprised by a trainman and, to the accompaniment of kicks and
blows, were left by him on the platform of some solitary station while
the train vanished like a lost hope. They awaited the arrival of
another, spending the night in the open, employing the cunning of
primitive man to satisfy their necessities, crawling round about country
houses to steal some solitary chicken, which, after wringing the fowl's
neck, they would broil over a fire of dry wood and devour scorched and
half raw, with the voracity of young savages.
Often when they slept in the open air near a station awaiting the
passing of a train, a couple of guards would come up to them. On seeing
the red bundles that served as pillows for these vagabonds, their
suspicions were quieted. They gently removed the boys' caps, and on
finding the hairy appendage they went away laughing without further
investigation. These were not young thieves; they were apprentices who
were going to the _capeas_. And in this tolerance there was a mixture of
sympathy for the national sport and of respect for the obscure
possibilities of the future. Who could tell if one of these ragged
youths, despite his present appearance of poverty, might not in the
future be a "star of the art," a great man who would kill bulls for the
entertainment of kings, and live like a prince, and whose deeds and
sayings would be exploited in the newspapers?
One afternoon, the Little Cobbler was left alone in a town of
Extremadura. For the admiration of the rustic audience which applauded
the famous bull-fighters "come purposely from Seville," the two boys
threw _banderillas_ at a fierce and ancient bull. Little Juan stuck his
pair into the beast and was posing near a view-stand, proudly receiving
the popular ovation of tremendous hand-clappings and proffers of cups of
wine, when an exclamation of horror sobered him in his intoxication of
glory. Chiripa was no longer on the ground of the plaza; only the
_banderillas_ rolling in the dust, one slipper and a cap were there. The
bull was moving about as if irritated by some obstacle, carrying hooked
on one of his horns a bundle of clothing resembling a puppet. With the
violent tossing of his head the shapeless roll was loosened from the
horn, ejecting a red stream, but before touching the ground it was
caught by the opposite horn which in its turn tossed it about during
what seemed an interminable time. At last, the sorry bulk fell to the
dust and there it stayed, flabby and inert, like a punctured wine-skin
expelling its contents.
The herder with his leaders took the bull into the corral, for no one
else dared go near him, and poor Chiripa was carried upon a stretcher to
a wretched little room in the town-house that served as a jail. His
companion looked at him with a face as white as if made of plaster.
Chiripa's eyes were glazed and his body was red with the blood which
could not be stopped by the cloths wet with water and vinegar, which
were applied in lieu of anything better.
"Adio', Little Cobbler!" he moaned. "Adio', Juanito!"
And he said no more. The companion of the dead youth, terrified, started
on his return to Seville still seeing his glassy eyes, hearing his
mournful good-bye. He was filled with fear. A gentle cow appearing in
his path would have made him run. He thought of his mother and of the
prudence of her counsel. Would it not be better to dedicate himself to
shoemaking and live tranquilly? But these resolutions only lasted while
he was alone. When he reached Seville he felt the return of
exhilaration. Friends rushed to him to hear about the death of poor
Chiripa in every detail. Professional bull-fighters questioned him in
Campana Street, remembering with pity the little vagabond with the
pock-marked face who had often run errands for them. Juan, fired by such
signs of consideration, gave rein to his powerful imagination,
describing how he had thrown himself upon the bull when he had seen his
poor companion hooked, how he had grabbed the beast by the tail and
achieved even more wonderful feats, in spite of which the other boy had
left this world.
The impulse of fear vanished. Bull-fighter--nothing but a bull-fighter!
Since others were, why should he not be one? He recollected his mother's
spoiled beans and hard bread; the deprivation each pair of new
pantaloons had cost him; the hunger, that inseparable companion of many
of his expeditions. Moreover he had a vehement desire for all the joys
and displays of life; he gazed with envy at the coaches and the horses;
he stood transfixed before the doors of the great houses through whose
iron grilles he saw courtyards of Oriental sumptuousness and arcades of
colored tiles, pavements with marble and chattering fountains casting a
stream of pearls day and night into a basin surrounded by foliage. His
fate was sealed. To kill bulls or die! To be rich, to have the
newspapers talk of him, and to have the people bow to him, even though
it were at the price of his life. He despised the lower grades of the
art. He saw the _banderilleros_ expose their lives equally with the
swordsmen in exchange for thirty _duros_ for each bull-fight; and, after
a round of toil and horn-stabs, become old, with no other future than
some wretched business bought with paltry savings, or else a position at
the slaughter-house. Some died in the hospital; others begged alms from
their youthful companions. He would have nothing to do with
_banderilleros_ nor with spending long years in a _cuadrilla_ in
submission to the despotism of a _maestro_. He would begin with killing
bulls; he would tread the sand of the plazas as a swordsman!
The misfortune of poor Chiripa gave him a certain ascendency over his
companions, and he formed a _cuadrilla_ of ragged youths who marched
behind him to the _capeas_ of the _pueblos_. They respected him because
he was braver and better dressed. Some young girls of the street,
attracted by the manly beauty of the Little Cobbler, who was now in his
eighteenth year, and predisposed by his _coleta_, disputed in noisy
competition the honor of taking care of his comely person. Moreover he
counted on a patron, an old magistrate who had a weakness for the
courage of young bull-fighters and whose friendship infuriated Senora
Angustias and caused her to let loose some most indecent expressions
which she had learned at the Tobacco Factory in her younger days.
The Little Cobbler dressed himself in suits of English cloth well fitted
to the elegance of his figure, and his hat was always resplendent. His
friends took scrupulous care of the whiteness of his collars and
furbelows, and on certain days he proudly wore on his waistcoat a heavy
gold chain, a loan from his respectable friend, that had already figured
around the necks of other "boys who were starting out."
He mingled with broken-down bull-fighters; he could pay for the drinks
of the old _peones_ who recalled the deeds of famous swordsmen. It was
believed for a certainty that some protectors were exerting themselves
in favor of this "boy," awaiting a propitious occasion for him to make
his _debut_ in a fight of young bullocks in the plaza of Seville.
The Little Cobbler was now a _matador_. One day, at Lebrija, when a
lively little young bull came into the plaza, his companions had urged
him on to the greatest luck. "Dost thou dare to kill him?" And he killed
him! Henceforward, fired by the ease with which he had escaped danger,
he went to all the _capeas_ in which they announced that a bull was to
be killed, and to all the granges where bulls were to be fought to the
death.
The proprietor of La Rinconada, a rich farmer with a small bull-ring,
was an enthusiast who kept his table set and his hayloft open for all
the hungry who wished to divert him by fighting his cattle. Juan went
there in days of poverty with other companions, to eat and drink to the
health of the rural hidalgo, although it might be at the price of some
rough tumbling. They arrived afoot after a two days' tramp and the
proprietor, seeing the dusty troop with their bundles of capes, said
solemnly:
"Whoever does the best work, I'll buy him a ticket that he may return to
Seville on the train."
Two days the lord of the farm spent smoking on the balcony of his plaza
while the boys from Seville fought young bulls, being frequently caught
and trampled.
He sharply reproved a poorly executed cape-play, and called out, "Get up
off the ground, you big coward! Come, give him wine to get him over his
fright," when a boy persisted in remaining stretched on the ground after
a bull had passed over his body.
The Little Cobbler killed a bull in a manner so much to the liking of
the owner that the latter seated him at his table while his comrades
stayed in the kitchen with the herders and farm laborers, dipping their
horn spoons into the steaming broth.
"Thou hast earned the return by railroad, my brave youth. Thou wilt
travel far if thou dost not lose heart. Thou hast promise."
The Little Cobbler, starting on his return to Seville second class while
the _cuadrilla_ tramped afoot, thought that a new life was beginning for
him, and he cast a look of covetousness at the enormous plantation with
its extensive olive orchards, its fields of grain, its mills, its
meadows stretching out of sight in which were pasturing thousands of
goats, while bulls and cows lay quietly chewing the cud. What wealth! If
only he might some day come to possess something like that!