THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR
On winter evenings when Gallardo was not at La Rinconada, a company of
friends gathered in the dining-room of his house after supper. Among the
first arrivals were the leather-worker and his wife, who always had two
of their children in the swordsman's home. Carmen, wishing to forget her
barrenness and oppressed by the silence of the great dwelling, kept her
sister-in-law's youngest children with her most of the time. They,
partly from spontaneous affection and partly by command of their
parents, affectionately caressed with kissings and cat-like purrings
their handsome aunt and their generous and popular uncle.
When Nacional came to spend an hour with them, although the visit was
rather a matter of duty, the circle was always enlivened. Gallardo,
dressed in a rich jacket like a country gentleman, his head uncovered,
and his coleta smooth and shiny, received his _banderillero_ with
waggish amiability. What were the devotees saying? What lies were they
circulating? How was the republic coming along?
"Garabato, give Sebastian a glass of wine."
But Nacional refused this courtesy. No wine for him! He did not drink.
Wine was to blame for the failures of the laboring class; and the whole
party on hearing this broke out into a laugh, as though he had made
some witty remark which they had been expecting. Then the
_banderillero_ began to be entertaining.
The only one who remained silent, with hostile eyes, was the
leather-worker. He hated Nacional, regarding him as an enemy. He also
was prolific in his fidelity, as befits a man of good principles, so
that a swarm of young children buzzed about the little tavern clinging
to the mother's skirts. Gallardo and his wife had been god-parents to
the two youngest, thus uniting the swordsman and the _banderillero_ in
the relationship of _compadres_. Hypocrite! Every Sunday he brought the
two god-children, dressed in their best, to kiss the hand of their
sponsors in baptism, and the leather-worker paled with indignation
whenever he saw Nacional's children receive a present. They came to rob
his own. Maybe the _banderillero_ even dreamt that a part of the
swordsman's fortune might fall into the hands of these god-children.
Thief! A man who was not of the family!
When he did not receive Nacional's words in silence and with looks of
hatred he tried to censure him, showing himself in favor of the
immediate shooting of all who stir up rebellion and are in consequence a
danger to good citizens.
Nacional was ten years older than the _maestro_. When Gallardo began to
fight in the capeas he was already a _banderillero_ in professional
_cuadrillas_ and he had been to America where he had killed bulls in the
plaza at Lima. At the beginning of his career he enjoyed a certain
popularity on account of being young and agile. He had also shone for a
few days as "the bull-fighter of the future," and the Sevillian
connoisseurs, their eyes upon him, expected him to eclipse the
bull-fighters from other lands. But this lasted only a short while. On
his return from his travels with the prestige of hazy and distant
exploits, the populace rushed to the bull-plaza of Seville to see him
kill. Thousands were unable to get in; but at the moment of final trial
"he lacked heart," as the amateurs said. He lodged the _banderillas_
with skill, like a conscientious and serious workman who fulfils his
duty, but when he went in to kill the instinct of self-preservation,
stronger than his will, kept him at a distance from the bull and
prevented his taking advantage of his stature and his strong arm.
Nacional renounced the highest glories of tauromachy. _Banderillero_,
nothing more! He resigned himself to be a journeyman of his art, serving
others younger than himself and earning a meagre salary as a _peon_ to
support his family and lay by some scanty savings to establish a small
industry by and by. His kindness and his honest habits were proverbial
among the people of the _coleta_. The wife of his _matador_ was fond of
him, believing him a kind of guardian angel of her husband's fidelity.
When, in summer, Gallardo with all his people went to a music hall in
some provincial capital, eager for gambling and sport after having
despatched the bulls in several _corridas_, Nacional remained silent and
grave among the singing girls with their gauzy dress and their painted
lips, like an anchorite from the desert in the midst of the courtesans
of Alexandria. He was not scandalized but he grew sad thinking of the
wife and children that waited for him in Seville. All defects and
corruptions in the world were, in his opinion, the result of lack of
education. Of course those poor women did not know how to read and
write. The same was true of himself and, as he attributed his
insignificance and poverty of intellect to that, he laid all misery and
degradation in the world to the same cause. In his early youth he had
been an iron-founder and an active member of the International Workmen's
Union, an assiduous listener to his more fortunate fellow-workmen who
could read in a loud voice what the newspapers said of the welfare of
the people. He played at soldiering in the days of the national militia,
figuring in the battalions which wore the red cap as the sign of being
implacable federalist propagandists. He spent whole days before the
platforms raised in the public squares, where various societies declared
themselves in permanent session and orators succeeded one another day
and night, haranguing with Andalusian fluency about the divinity of
Jesus and the increase in the price of articles of prime necessity,
until, when hard times came, a strike left him in the trying situation
of the workman black-listed on account of his ideas, finding himself
turned away from every shop.
He liked bull-fighting and he became a _torero_ at twenty-four, just as
he might have chosen any other trade. He, moreover, knew a great deal
and talked with contempt of the absurdities of the present state of
society. Not for nothing does one spend years hearing the papers read!
However ill he might fare at bull-fighting he would surely earn more and
have an easier life than if he were a skilled workman. The people,
remembering the time when he shouldered the musket of the popular
militia, nicknamed him Nacional.
He spoke of the taurine profession with a certain regret, in spite of
the years he had spent therein, and he apologized for belonging to it.
The committee of his district, who had decreed the expulsion of all who
attended bull-fights on account of their barbarous and retrograding
influence, had made an exception in his favor, retaining him as an
active member in good standing.
"I know," he said in Gallardo's dining-room, "that this business of the
bulls is a reactionary thing--something belonging to the times of the
Inquisition; I don't know whether I explain myself. The people need to
learn to read and write as much as they need bread and it is not well
for them to spend their money on us while they so greatly lack
schooling. That is what the papers that come from Madri' say. But the
club members appreciate me, and the committee, after a long preachment
from Don Joselito, have agreed to keep me on the roll of membership."
Don Joselito, the school teacher and chairman of the committee of the
district, was a learned young man of Israelitish extraction who brought
to the political struggle the ardor of the Maccabees and was
undistressed by his brown ugliness and his small-pox scars because they
gave him a certain likeness to Danton. Nacional always listened to him
open-mouthed.
When Don Jose, Gallardo's business manager, and other friends of the
master, jokingly disputed his doctrines at those after-dinner
gatherings, making extravagant objections, poor Nacional was in
suspense, scratching his forehead from perplexity.
"You are gentlemen and have studied and I don't know how to read or
write. That is why we of the lower class are like sheep. But if only Don
Joselito were here! By the life of the blue dove! If you could hear him
when he lets loose and talks like an angel!"
To fortify his faith, somewhat weakened by the assaults of the jokers,
he would go the following day to see Don Joselito, who seemed to
luxuriate in bitterness, as a descendant of the persecuted chosen
people, and look over what Joselito called his museum of horrors. The
Hebrew, returned to the native land of his forefathers, was collecting
relics of the Inquisition in a room of the school, with the vengeful
accuracy of a prisoner who might reconstruct bone by bone the skeleton
of his jailor. In a bookcase stood rows of parchment tomes--decrees of
sentences pronounced by the Inquisition and catechisms for interrogating
the offender undergoing torture. On one wall hung a white banner with
the dreaded green cross. In the corners were heaped instruments of
torture--frightful scourges and fiendish devices for cleaving, for
stripping and tearing human flesh, that Don Joselito found in the shops
of the curio-dealers and catalogued as ancient belongings of the Holy
Office. Nacional's kind and simple soul, easily roused to anger, rose in
rebellion at the sight of these rusty irons and green crosses.
"Man alive! And yet there are those that say--! By the life of the dove!
I would like to see some folks here!"
Often in summer, when the _cuadrilla_ was going from one province to
another and Gallardo went into the second class carriage in which "the
boys" were travelling, some rural priest or pair of friars would get on
board. The _banderilleros_ would nudge each other with their elbows and
wink one eye looking at Nacional, who seemed even more grave and solemn
in the presence of the enemy. The _picadores_, Potaje and Tragabuches,
lusty aggressive fellows, lovers of riots and fights who felt a decided
aversion to the ecclesiastical dress, urged him on in a loud voice.
"There's thy chance! Go at him for the good cause! Lodge one of thy
yarns in the nape of his neck."
The _maestro_, with all his authority as chief of _cuadrilla_, against
which none may parley nor argue, rolled his eyes, and looked at
Nacional, who maintained a silent obedience. But stronger than duty was
the impulse of his simple soul to convert, and an insignificant word was
enough to open a discussion with the travellers, to try to convince them
of the truth; and the truth was for him a kind of confused and
disordered remnant of arguments learned from Don Joselito.
His comrades looked at each other astonished at the wisdom of their
companion, well pleased that one of them should face professional people
and put them in a tight place, for they were almost invariably priests
of little learning. And the holy men, astounded at Nacional's confused
reasoning and the smiles of the other bull-fighters, finally resorted to
an extreme measure. Did men who continually exposed their lives to peril
take no thought of God and believe in such things as he said? At this
very moment how their wives and mothers must be praying for them!
The men of the _cuadrilla_ grew serious, thinking with timorous gravity
of the scapularies and medallions feminine hands had sewed to their
fighting garments before they left Seville. The _matador_, his sleeping
superstition aroused, was angry with Nacional, as though in this lack of
piety he foresaw danger to his life.
"Keep still and don't talk any more of your crudities. Pardon, Senores!
He is a good man but his head has been turned by so many lies. Shut up
and don't give me any impertinence. Damn it all!"
And Gallardo, to tranquillize these gentlemen whom he believed to be
trustees of the future, overwhelmed the _banderillero_ with threats and
curses.
Nacional took refuge in disdainful silence. All ignorance and
superstition! All from lack of knowing how to read and write! And firm
in his beliefs, with the simplicity of a man who possesses only two or
three ideas and will not let go of them, he took up the discussion again
in a few hours--paying no heed to the anger of the _matador_.
He carried his impiety even into the midst of the ring, among _peones_
and pikemen who, after having said a prayer in the chapel of the plaza,
went into the arena with the hope that the sacred emblems sewed to their
clothing would deliver them from danger.
When the time came to stick the barbs into some enormous bull of great
weight, thick neck, and deep black color, Nacional stood up before him
with his arms extended and the barbs in his hands, shouting insults at
him:
"Come on, you old priest!"
The "priest" dashed forward furiously, and as he approached, Nacional
lodged the _banderillas_ in the nape of his neck with all his strength,
saying in a loud voice, as if he had gained a victory:
"For the clergy!"
Gallardo ended by laughing at Nacional's extravagances.
"Thou makest me ridiculous. Our _cuadrilla_ will be branded as a herd of
heretics. Thou knowest that some audiences don't like that. The
bull-fighter should only fight bulls."
Nevertheless, he loved his _banderillero_, mindful of his attachment
which had sometimes risen to the point of sacrifice. Nacional cared not
if he were hissed when he lodged the _banderillas_ carelessly in
dangerous bulls as a result of his desire to get through quickly. He
cared nothing for glory and only fought bulls for his wage. But the
moment Gallardo walked sword in hand toward a treacherous bull the
_banderillero_ kept near him, ready to aid him with his heavy cape and
his strong arm which had humbled the necks of so many wild beasts. Twice
when Gallardo rolled on the sand, nearly caught by the dagger-like
horns, Nacional threw himself upon the animal forgetting his wife, his
children, his little tavern, everything, ready to die to save his
_maestro_. He was received in Gallardo's dining-room in the evenings,
therefore, as though he were a member of the family.
Gallardo and Don Jose, who sat across the table smoking, the glass of
cognac within reach of the hand, liked to start Nacional to talking so
as to laugh at his ideas, and they teased him by insulting Don
Joselito--a liar who turned the heads of the ignorant!
The _banderillero_ took the jokes of the swordsman and his manager
calmly. Doubt Don Joselito? Such an absurdity could not move him--no
more than if they should attack his other idol, Gallardo, telling him he
did not know how to kill a bull.
But when the leather-worker, who inspired him with an irresistible
aversion, began to joke him he lost composure. Who was that hungry
fellow who lived by hanging onto his master, to dare to dispute him!
And losing self-command, forgetting the presence of the master's wife
and mother and of Encarnacion, who, imitating her husband, curled her
be-whiskered lip and looked scornfully at the _banderillero_, he rushed
down grade into an exposition of his views with the same fervor with
which he discoursed in the committee. For lack of better arguments he
overwhelmed the ideas of the jokers with insults.
"The Bible? _Liquid!_ That nonsense about creation of the world in six
days? _Liquid!_ That about Adam and Eve? _Liquid_, also! All lies and
superstition."
And the word _liquid_, applied to whatever he believed false or
insignificant, fell from his lips as a strong expression of scorn. "That
about Adam and Eve" was for him a subject of sarcasm. How could all
human beings be descendants from one pair only?
"My name is Sebastian Venegas; and thou, Juaniyo, thy name is Gallardo;
and you, Don Jose, have your surname; and every one has his own, only
those of the parents being alike. If we were all grandchildren of Adam,
and Adam, for example, was named Perez, we would all have Perez for a
surname. Is that clear? But every one of us has his own because there
were many Adams and what the priests tell is all _liquid!_ Superstition
and ignorance! We lack education and they deceive us; I think I explain
myself."
Gallardo, throwing himself back with laughter, saluted his
_banderillero_, imitating the bellowing of a bull. The business manager,
with Andalusian gravity, offered him his hand, congratulating him.
"Shake, old boy! Thou hast done well! Not even Castelar could have done
better!"
Senora Angustias was indignant at hearing such things in her house,
horrified with the terror of an old woman who sees the end of her
existence drawing near.
"Shut up, Sebastian; shut thy big, wicked mouth, lost soul, or into the
street thou goest! Thou shalt not say those things here, thou devil! If
I did not know thee--If I did not know that thou art a good man--"
Finally she became reconciled to the _banderillero_, remembering how
much he loved her Juan and what he had done for him in moments of
danger. Moreover, it gave her and Carmen great ease of mind to know that
this serious man of decent habits worked in the _cuadrilla_ by the side
of the other "boys" and of the _matador_ himself, who, when he was
alone, was excessively gay in disposition and let himself be carried
away by the desire to be admired by women.
The enemy of the clergy and of Adam and Eve guarded a secret of his
_maestro_, however, that made him reserved and grave when he saw him at
home with his mother and Senora Carmen. If these women knew what _he_
knew!
In spite of the respect which every _banderillero_ should show his
_matador_ Nacional had dared one day to talk to Gallardo with rough
frankness, relying on his years and on their old friendship.
"Be careful, Juaniyo, for everybody in Seville knows the whole story!
They talk of nothing else and the news is going to reach your house and
there'll be such a riot it'll set fire to the hair of God himself--Don't
forget about that affair with the singing girl; and that was nothing!
This creature is more forceful and more dangerous."
"But what creature is that? And what riots are those thou art talking
about?"
"Who can it be? Dona Sol; that great lady who makes so much talk. The
niece of the Marquis of Moraima, the cattle-breeder."
And as the swordsman was smiling and silent, flattered by Nacional's
exact information, the latter continued with the air of a preacher
proclaiming the vanities of this world, "The married man should above
all things seek the tranquillity of his house. Women! _Liquid!_ They are
all alike and it is nonsense to embitter one's life jumping from one to
another. I am a married man and in the twenty-four years I have lived
with my Teresa I have never been faithless to her even in thought,
although I am a bull-fighter; and I had my day and more than one lass
has cast tender eyes at me."
Gallardo burst out laughing at his _banderillero_. He talked like a
father-superior. And was this the same man that wanted to eat the
priests up raw?
"Nacional, don't be hard on me. Every one is what he is and since the
women come, let them come. What does one live for? Any day he may go out
of the ring foot foremost. Besides, thou knowest nothing of the affair,
nor what a lady is. If thou couldst _see_ that woman!"
Then he ingenuously added, as if he wished to counter-act the expression
of scandal and sadness engraved on Nacional's countenance:
"I love Carmen very much, dost thou understand? I love her as well as
ever; but the other I love too. That is different. I don't know how to
explain it to thee. That's another matter. Drop it!"
And the _banderillero_ could make no further headway in his
expostulation with Gallardo.
Months before, when with the autumn came the end of the bull-fighting
season, the swordsman had had an adventure at the Church of San Lorenzo.
He was resting in Seville a few days before going to La Rinconada with
his family. To kill more than a hundred bulls a year with all the danger
and strain of the contest did not weary him so much as the ceaseless
travel from one end of Spain to the other during a period of several
months. These journeys were made in mid-summer, under a blistering sun,
over parched plains and in old cars whose roofs seemed to be on fire.
The water-jar belonging to the _cuadrilla_, filled at every station, was
not enough to quench the thirst. Moreover, the trains ran crowded with
passengers--people going to the fairs in the cities to see the
bull-fights. Often Gallardo, for fear of missing the train, killed his
last bull in one plaza, and, still dressed in his fighting costume,
rushed to the train, passing like a meteor of light and color among the
groups of travellers and baggage trucks, and changed his clothes in a
first-class compartment under the gaze of the passengers, who were glad
to travel with a celebrity.
When he arrived, worn-out, at some city where the streets were in festal
array, decorated with banners and arches, he had to endure the torment
of enthusiastic adoration. The connoisseurs and his personal adherents
met him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. They were
well-rested and happy folk who grasped him by the hand and expected to
find him expansive and loquacious, as though on meeting them he must
perforce experience the greatest pleasure.
Frequently a single _corrida_ was not all. He had to fight bulls three
or four days in succession, and when night came, exhausted from
weariness and lack of sleep on account of his recent excitement, he gave
up all social affairs and sat at the door of the hotel in his
shirt-sleeves, enjoying the fresh air of the street. The "boys" of the
_cuadrilla_ lodged at the same inn and kept near the _maestro_, like a
brotherhood in a cloister. Some of the most audacious would ask
permission to take a walk along the illuminated streets and out to the
fair grounds.
"Miuras to-morrow!" said the _matador_. "I know what those walks are.
Thou wilt return at daybreak with two glasses too many and thou'lt not
fail to have some kind of an affair to take thy strength. No; thou canst
not go. When we get through thou mayest play."
And the work over, if there were a few days of liberty before the next
_corrida_ in some other city, the _cuadrilla_ would put off the trip,
and then the gay time would begin, far from the restraint of their
families, with abundance of wine and women in company with enthusiastic
devotees, who imagined this to be the everyday life of their idols.
The divers dates of the _fiestas_ obliged the swordsman to take absurd
journeys. He would leave one city to work in the other extreme of Spain,
and four days later he would return, fighting bulls in a town near the
first one. He almost spent the summer months, when _corridas_ were most
frequent, in the train, making a continual zigzag over all the railroads
of the Peninsula, killing bulls in the plazas, and sleeping on the
cars.
"If all my summer travel were arranged in a straight line," said
Gallardo, "it would sure reach to the North Pole."
At the beginning of the season he started on his travels with
enthusiasm, thinking of the multitude that talked of him throughout the
whole year, impatiently awaiting his coming; he thought of the
unforeseen events; of the adventures that feminine curiosity would
frequently yield him; of the life from hotel to hotel, with its changes,
its annoyances, its varied meals, that contrasted strongly with the
placid existence in Seville and the days of mountain solitude at La
Rinconada. But after a few weeks of this giddy life, in which he earned
five thousand pesetas for each afternoon of work, Gallardo began to
lament, like a child far from its family.
"Ah! My cool house in Seville! Poor Carmen who keeps it shining like a
little silver cup! Ah! _Mamita's_ cooking! So rich!"
He only forgot Seville on holiday nights, when he did not have to fight
bulls the following day; when all the _cuadrilla_, surrounded by
devotees anxious to give them a good impression of the city, gathered at
a _cafe flamenco_ where women and songs were all for the _maestro_.
When Gallardo went home to recuperate during the remainder of the year
he felt the satisfaction of the mighty who, forgetting honors, give
themselves up to the comforts of ordinary life.
He slept late, free from the tyranny of train schedules and unstirred by
any emotion when he thought of bulls. Nothing to do this day, nor the
next, nor the next! His travel ended at Sierpes Street, or the plaza of
San Fernando. The family seemed changed, happier and in better health,
having him safe at home for a few months. He went out with his hat on
the back of his head, twirling his gold-headed cane and admiring the big
brilliants on his fingers. In the vestibule some men were waiting for
him,--sun-browned men with a sour, sweaty, stench, wearing dirty blouses
and broad hats with ragged rims. Some were field laborers out on a
tramp, who thought it quite natural on passing through Seville to obtain
help from the famous _matador_ whom they called Senor Juan. Others lived
in the city, and _thou_-ed the bull-fighter, calling him Juaniyo.
Gallardo, with a memory for faces characteristic of a public man,
recognized them and permitted their familiarity. They were comrades of
his few school days or his youthful vagabondage.
"Business not going well, eh? Times are hard for everybody."
And before this friendliness could encourage them to greater intimacy he
turned to Garabato who stood holding the gate open.
"Tell the _senora_ to give thee a couple of _pesetas_ for each one."
Then he went out into the street whistling, pleased with his generosity
and the beauty of his life. He was detained on the next block by a
couple of old women, friends of his mother, who asked him to stand as
godfather to the grandchild of one of them. Her poor daughter was about
to become a mother at any moment; her son-in-law, an ardent Gallardist,
had come to blows several times going out of the plaza in defence of his
idol but dared not speak to him.
"But, damn it! Do you take me for the director of an orphan asylum?
I've got more god-children than there are in the poor-house."
To rid himself of them he told them to see his _mamita_. Whatever she
said should stand! And he went on, not stopping until he reached Sierpes
Street, bowing to some and giving others the honor of walking at his
side in glorious intimacy before the gaze of the passersby.
He looked in at the Forty-five Club, to see if his manager were there.
This was an aristocratic society of a limited membership, as its title
indicated, in which the talk was only of bulls and horses. It was
composed of gentlemen-amateurs and cattle-breeders, the Marquis of
Moraima figuring preeminently, like an oracle.
On one of these walks, one afternoon, Gallardo found himself sauntering
along Sierpes Street, and took a notion to enter the parish chapel of
San Lorenzo. In the little square before it stood luxurious carriages.
On this day the best families were wont to pray to the miraculous image
of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power. Ladies stepped out of the coaches,
dressed in black, with rich _mantillas_; and men went into the church
attracted by the feminine assemblage.
Gallardo entered also. A bull-fighter must take advantage of
opportunities to rub elbows with persons of high position. The son of
Senora Angustias felt the pride of a conqueror when rich gentlemen bowed
to him and elegant ladies murmured his name, turning their eyes upon
him. Moreover, he was a devotee of the Lord of the Great Power. He
tolerated in Nacional his opinions on "God or Nature" without being much
shocked, for the Divinity meant for him something vague and indefinite,
like the existence of a great lord about whom one might listen calmly
to all kinds of blasphemy, because he is only known by hearsay. But the
Virgin of Hope and Jesus of the Great Power he had been accustomed to
seeing since his earliest years, and these must not be maligned. The
susceptibilities of the lusty youth were touched by the theatrical agony
of the Christ with the cross on his back, the sweaty countenance,
painful and livid like that of comrades he had seen stretched out in the
infirmaries of the bull-plazas. He must be on good terms with this
powerful lord and he fervently uttered several _pater-nosters_, standing
before the image, with the candles like red stars reflected in the
corneas of his Moorish eyes.
A movement among the women kneeling before him distracted his attention,
which had been absorbed in a plea for supernatural intervention whenever
his life should be in danger.
A lady passed among the worshippers, attracting their notice; she was a
tall, slender woman, of astounding beauty, dressed in light colors and
wearing a great hat with plumes beneath which shone the luminous gold of
her abundant hair.
Gallardo knew her. It was Dona Sol, the Marquis of Moraima's niece, the
"Ambassadress," as they called her in Seville. She passed among the
women paying no attention to their movements of curiosity, satisfied to
win their glances and to hear the murmur of their words as though this
were a natural homage that should follow her appearance in any public
place. The foreign elegance of her dress and her enormous hat were
outlined in their showy splendor against the dark mass of feminine
toilettes. She knelt, inclined her head as if in prayer for a few
moments, and then her light eyes of greenish blue, with their
reflections of gold, roved about the temple tranquilly as though she
were in a theatre examining the audience, searching for familiar faces.
Those eyes seemed to smile when they encountered the face of a friend
and persisted in their roving until they met Gallardo's, which were
fixed upon her. The _matador_ was not modest. Accustomed to being
himself the object of contemplation of thousands and thousands of
persons on bull-fight afternoons, he might well believe that, wherever
he was, the looks of all must of course be meant for him. Many women, in
hours of confidence, had revealed to him their emotion, the curiosity
and desire they felt on seeing him for the first time in the ring. Dona
Sol's gaze did not fall as it met the bull-fighter's; instead it
remained fixed, with the frigidity of a great lady, obliging the
_matador_, ever respectful to the rich, to turn his eyes away.
"What a woman!" thought Gallardo, with the petulance of a popular idol.
"Can that _gachi_ be for me?"
Outside of the church he felt a desire to wait, and he remained near the
door. His heart warned him of something extraordinary, as on afternoons
when good fortune was coming. It was that mysterious presentiment which
in the ring made him deaf to the protests of the public, throwing
himself headlong into the greatest dangers, and always with excellent
results. When she came out of the church she again looked at him
strangely, as if she had guessed that he would be waiting for her. She
stepped into an open carriage accompanied by two friends, and when the
coachman drove away she still turned her head to see the bull-fighter, a
faint smile on her lips.
Gallardo was distracted the remainder of the afternoon--thinking of his
former love affairs, of the triumphs of admiration and curiosity that
his bull-fighter's arrogance had won for him; conquests that filled him
with pride and made him think himself irresistible, but which now
inspired him with a kind of shame. A woman like that, a great lady, who
had travelled about the world and lived in Seville like an unthroned
queen! That would be a conquest! To his admiration of beauty was united
a certain reverence derived from ancient servitude, of respect for the
rich in a country where birth and fortune possess great importance. If
he should manage to claim the attention of that woman, what a tremendous
triumph!