"THE GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD"
During the whole night one dominant thought floated over the dark lake
of Gallardo's dreams. He must get _close_! And the next morning the
resolution was firmly rooted in his mind. He _would_ get close, and
astound the public by his brave deeds. Such was his mettle that he went
to the plaza free from the superstitious fears of former times. He felt
the certainty of triumph, the presentiment of his glorious afternoons.
The _corrida_ was unlucky from the start. The first bull "came in
fighting," furiously attacking the men on horseback. In an instant he
had thrown the three _picadores_ who awaited him lance in socket, and
two of the hacks, lay dying, streams of dark blood gushing from their
perforated chests. The other horse ran across the plaza, mad with pain
and surprise. The bull, attracted by this race, ran after him, and
lowering his powerful head beneath his belly, raised him on his horns
and threw him on the ground, venting his rage on the poor broken and
punctured hulk. As the wild beast left it kicking and dying, a _mono
sabio_ approached to finish it, burying his dagger blade in the crown of
his head. The wretched hack showed the fury of a lion in his death
struggles and bit the man, who gave a scream and shook his bleeding
right hand, pressing on the dagger until the horse ceased kicking and
lay with rigid limbs. Other plaza employees came running from all
directions with great baskets of sand to throw in heaps over the pools
of blood and the dead bodies of the horses.
The public was on its feet, gesticulating and vociferating. It was
filled with enthusiasm by the bull's fierceness and protested because
there was not a _picador_ in the ring, shouting in chorus: "Horses,
horses!"
Everybody knew they would come in immediately, but it infuriated them to
have an interval pass without new carnage. The bull stood alone in the
centre of the ring proud and bellowing, raising his blood-stained horns,
the ribbons of the emblem on his lacerated neck fluttering in the
breeze.
New horsemen appeared and the repugnant spectacle was repeated. The
_picador_ had barely approached with spear held in advance, reining his
horse to one side so that the bandaged eye would prevent his seeing the
bull, when the shock and fall were instantaneous. Javelins broke with
the cracking sound of dry wood; the gored horse was raised on the
powerful horns; blood spouted; bits of hide and flesh fell after the
shock of mortal combat; the _picador_ rolled along the sand like a
yellow-legged puppet and was immediately covered by the attendants'
capes.
The public hailed the riders' noisy falls with shouting and laughter.
The arena resounded with the shock of their heavy bodies and their
iron-covered legs. Some fell backwards like stuffed sacks, and their
heads, as they encountered the boards of the barricade, awoke a dismal
echo.
"He'll never get up again," shouted the people. "He must have busted his
melon."
But he did get up again; he extended his arms, scratched his head,
recovered his heavy beaver hat lost in the fall, and remounted the same
horse which the _monos sabios_ forced upon its feet with pushes and
blows. The gay horseman urged his steed into a trot, and astride the
agonized wreck rode to meet the wild beast again.
"Good for you!" he shouted, throwing his hat at a group of friends.
No sooner did he stand before the bull, thrusting his lance into the
neck, than man and horse rose on high, the two immediately falling apart
from the violence of the shock, and rolling in different directions.
Again, before the bull attacked, the _monos sabios_ and some of the
audience warned the horseman. "Dismount!" But before his rigid legs
would allow him to do so, the horse fell flat, instantly dead, and the
_picador_ was hurled over his ears his head striking the arena with a
resounding thud.
The bull's horns never managed to gore the riders, but those lying on
the ground apparently lifeless were carried by the _peones_ to the
infirmary to have their broken bones set or to be resuscitated from
deathlike unconsciousness.
Gallardo, eager to attract the sympathy of the audience, hurried from
place to place; he received great applause at one time for pulling a
bull's tail to save a _picador_ who lay on the ground at the point of
being gored.
While the _banderillas_ were being placed, Gallardo leaned against the
barrier and gazed along the boxes. Dona Sol must be in one of them. At
last he saw her, but without her white _mantilla_, without anything to
remind him of that Sevillian lady dressed like one of Goya's _majas_.
One might think her, with her blonde hair and her novel and elegant hat,
one of those foreign women attending a bull-fight for the first time.
At her side was the friend, that man of whom she talked with admiration
and to whom she was showing the interesting features of the country. Ah,
Dona Sol! Soon she should see of what mettle was the brave youth she had
abandoned! She would have to applaud him in the presence of the hated
stranger; she would be transported and moved against her will by the
enthusiasm of the audience.
When the moment arrived for Gallardo to kill his first bull, the second
on the programme, the public received him kindly as if it had forgotten
its anger at the previous bull-fight. The two weeks of suspension on
account of the rain seemed to have produced great tolerance in the
multitude. They were willing to find everything acceptable in a
_corrida_ so long awaited. Besides, the fierceness of the bulls and the
great mortality of horses had put the public in a good humor.
Gallardo strode up to the bull, his head uncovered after his salutation,
with the _muleta_ held before him, and swinging his sword like a cane.
Behind him, although at a prudent distance, followed Nacional and
another bull-fighter. A few voices from the rows of seats protested.
"How many acolytes!" It resembled a parish priest going to a funeral.
"Stand aside, everybody!" shouted Gallardo.
The two _peones_ paused, because he said it as if he meant it, with an
accent that left no room for doubt.
He strode ahead until near the wild beast, and there he unrolled his
_muleta_, making a few passes more like those of his old times, until he
thrust the rag near the drivelling muzzle. "A good play! Hurrah!" A
murmur of satisfaction ran along the tiers of seats. The bull-fighter
of Seville had redeemed his name; he had bull-fighter pride! He was
going to do some of his own feats, as in his better days. His _pases de
muleta_ were accompanied by noisy exclamations of enthusiasm, while his
partisans became reanimated and rebuked their enemies. What did they
think of that? Gallardo was careless sometimes--they knew that--but any
afternoon when he wished--!
That was one of the good afternoons. When he saw the bull standing with
motionless fore-feet, the public itself fired him with its advice. "Now!
Thrust!"
Gallardo threw himself against the wild beast with the sword presented,
but rapidly moved away from the danger of the horns.
Applause arose, but it was short; a threatening murmur cut by strident
hisses followed. The enthusiasts ceased looking at the bull to face the
rest of the public with indignation. What injustice! What lack of
knowledge! He had started in at the killing well enough--
But the enemies pointed to the bull derisively persisting in their
protests, and the whole plaza joined in a deafening explosion of hisses.
The sword had penetrated obliquely--passing through the bull's body, its
point appearing through one side, near his fore-leg. The people
gesticulated and waved their arms with roars of indignation. What a
scandal! Even a bad bullock-fighter would not make such a stroke as
that!
The animal, with the hilt of the sword in his neck, and the point
protruding through the joint of his fore-leg, began to limp, his
enormous mass quivering with the movement of his unsteady tread. This
spectacle seemed to move the audience with generous indignation. Poor
bull! So good; so noble. Some leaned forward, raging with fury, as if
they would throw themselves head foremost into the ring. Thief--son of a
thief! To thus martyrize an animal that was better than he. And all
shouted with impetuous sympathy for the animal's suffering, as if they
had not paid their money to witness his death.
Gallardo, astounded at his act, bowed his head beneath the storm of
insults and threats. "Cursed be the luck." He had started in to kill
just as in his better epoch, dominating the nervous feeling that forced
him to turn away his face as if he could not bear the sight of the wild
beast that charged him. But desire to avoid danger, to immediately
escape from between the horns, had caused him to lose his luck again
with that stupid and scandalous thrust.
The people on the tiers of seats stirred restlessly with the fervor of
numerous disputes. "He doesn't understand. He turns away his face. He
has made a fool of himself." Gallardo's partisans excused their idol,
but with less fervency. "That might happen to anybody. It is a
misfortune. The important thing is to start in to kill with spirit as he
does."
The bull, after running and limping with painful steps which made the
crowd howl with indignation, stood motionless, so as not to prolong his
martyrdom.
Gallardo grasped another sword, walked up and faced the bull.
The public divined his task. He must finish him by pricking him in the
base of the brain; the only thing he could do after his crime.
He held the point of the sword between the two horns, while with the
other hand he shook the _muleta_ so that the animal, attracted by the
rag, would lower his head to the ground. He pressed on the sword, and
the bull, feeling himself wounded, tossed his head throwing out the
instrument.
"One!" shouted the multitude with mocking unanimity.
The _matador_ repeated his play and again drove in the sword, making the
wild beast shudder.
"Two!" they sang mockingly from the bleachers.
He tried again to touch the vulnerable spot with no other result than a
bellow of pain from the animal, tortured by this martyrdom.
"Three!"
Hisses and shouts of protest were united to this ironic chorus on the
part of the public. When was that fool going to get through?
Finally he succeeded in touching with the point of his sword the
beginning of the spinal cord, the centre of life, and the bull fell
instantly, lying on his side with rigid legs.
The swordsman wiped the sweat off his brow and began his return to the
president's box with slow step, breathing heavily. At last he was free
of that animal. He had thought he would never finish. The public
received him with sarcasms as he passed, or with disdainful silence.
None applauded. He saluted the president in the midst of general
indifference, and took refuge behind the barrier, like a pupil shamed by
his faults. While Garabato offered him a glass of water, the _matador_
looked at the boxes, meeting the eyes of Dona Sol which had followed him
into his retreat. What must that woman think of him! How she and her
friend would laugh on seeing him insulted by the public! What a damnable
idea of that lady to come to the bull-fight!
He remained between barriers avoiding all fatigue until the next bull he
was to kill should be let out. His wounded leg pained him on account of
his having run so much. He was no longer himself; he knew it now. His
arrogance and his resolve to get closer resulted in nothing. His legs
were no longer swift and sure as in former times, nor had his right arm
that daring that made him extend it fearlessly, eager to reach the
bull's neck without delay. Now it bent disobedient to his will, with the
blind instinct of certain animals that shrink and hide their faces,
thinking thus to avoid danger.
His old-time superstitions suddenly awoke, terrifying and obsessing him.
"I feel that something is going to happen," thought Gallardo. "My heart
tells me that the fifth bull will catch me--he'll catch me--there is no
escape."
However, when the fifth bull came out, the first thing he met was
Gallardo's cape. What an animal! He seemed different from the one he had
chosen in the _corral_ the day before. Surely they had changed the order
in regard to letting out the bulls. Fear kept ringing in the
bull-fighter's ears. "Bad sign! He'll catch me; I'll go out of the ring
to-day foot foremost."
In spite of this he kept on fighting the wild beast and drawing it away
from _picadores_ in danger. At first his feats were received in silence.
Then the public, softening, applauded him mildly. When it came time for
the death-stroke and Gallardo squared himself before the wild beast,
every one seemed to divine the confusion of his mind. He moved as if
disconcerted; the bull no sooner tossed his head than, taking the
attitude for an advance, he stepped back, receding by great springs,
while the public greeted these attempts at flight with a chorus of
jests.
"Ouch! Ouch! He'll catch thee!"
Suddenly, as if he wished to end it by any means, he threw himself upon
the animal with the sword, but obliquely, so as to escape from danger as
soon as possible. An explosion of hisses and voices! The sword was
embedded but a few inches, and after vibrating in the wild beast's neck,
was shaken out and hurled far away.
Gallardo took his sword again and approached the bull. He squared
himself to go in to kill and the wild beast charged at the same instant.
He longed to flee but his legs no longer had the agility of other times.
He was struck and rolled over from the shock. Aid came, and Gallardo
arose covered with dirt, with a great rent in the seat of his trousers
through which his white underclothing escaped, and minus a slipper and
the _mona_ which adorned his queue.
The arrogant youth whom the public had so much admired for his elegance,
presented a pitiful and absurd appearance with his clothes awry, his
hair disarranged, his _coleta_ fallen and undone like a limp tail.
Several capes were mercifully extended around him to aid and shield him.
The other bull-fighters, with generous comradeship, even prepared the
bull so that he could finish with it quickly. But Gallardo seemed blind
and deaf; no sooner did he see the animal than he stepped back at his
lightest charges, as if the recent upsetting had maddened him with
fear. He did not understand what his comrades said to him, but, with his
face intensely pale, and frowning as though to concentrate his mind, he
stammered, not knowing what he said:
"Stand aside, everybody! Leave me alone!"
Meanwhile fear kept singing through his brain: "To-day thou diest.
To-day is thy last goring."
The public divined the swordsman's thought from his confused movements.
"The bull makes him sick. He has become afraid!"
Even Gallardo's most fervent partisans kept silent through shame, unable
to explain this occurrence never before seen.
The people seemed to revel in his terror, with the undaunted courage of
those who are in a place of safety. Others, thinking of their money,
shouted against this man who let himself be ruled by the instinct of
self-preservation, defrauding them of their joy. A robbery! Vile people
insulted the swordsman, expressing doubt as to his sex. Odium had
brought to light and spread abroad, after many years of adulation,
certain memories of the bull-fighter's youth, forgotten even by himself.
They recalled his nocturnal life with the vagabonds on the Alameda of
Hercules. They laughed at his torn breeches and at the white clothing
that escaped through the rent.
"If thou couldst see thyself!" shouted shrill voices, with feminine
accent.
Gallardo, protected by his companions' capes, took advantage of all the
bull's distractions to wound him with his sword, deaf to the mocking of
the public.
He dealt thrusts that the animal barely felt. His terror at being
caught lengthened his arm and caused him to stand at a distance,
wounding only with the point of the sword.
Some blades were scarcely embedded in the flesh, and fell; others
remained lodged in bone but were uncovered in their greater length,
vibrating with the movements of the bull which walked with lowered head,
following the contour of the wall, bellowing as if with weariness at the
useless torment. The swordsman followed him, _muleta_ in hand, eager to
finish him, yet fearful of exposing himself, and behind came the whole
troop of assistants moving their capes as if they wished to induce the
animal by the waving of their rags to bend his legs and lie down.
The bull's journey about the ring close to the barrier, his muzzle
drivelling, his neck bristling with swords, provoked an explosion of
mockery and insult.
"It is the Via Dolorosa," they said.
Others compared the animal to a cushion full of pins. Thief! Miserable
bull-puncher!
Some, more vile, persisted in their insults to Gallardo's sex, changing
his name.
"Juanita, don't get lost!"
A long time passed and a part of the public, wishing to discharge its
fury against something higher than the bull-fighter, turned towards the
presidential box. "_Senor Presidente!_" How long was this scandal going
to last?
The president made a sign that quieted the protestants and gave an
order. A minor official with his plumed shovel-hat and floating cape was
seen to run along behind the barrier until he stood near the bull.
There, turning to Gallardo, he held out his hand, with his index finger
raised. The public applauded. It was the first notice. If the bull was
not killed before the third, he would be returned to the _corral_,
leaving the swordsman under the stain of the greatest dishonor.
Gallardo, as if awakening from his dream, terrified at this threat,
raised his sword and threw himself upon the bull. Another thrust that
barely penetrated the bull's body.
The swordsman let fall his arms in dejection. Surely the beast was
immortal. Sword-thrusts made no impression on him. It seemed as if he
would never fall.
The inefficiency of the last stroke infuriated the public. Every one
rose to his feet. The hisses were deafening, obliging the women to cover
their ears. Many waved their arms, bending forward, as if they wished to
hurl themselves into the plaza. Oranges, bread crusts, seat cushions,
flew into the ring like swift projectiles aimed at the _matador_.
Stentorian voices rose from the seats in the sun, roars like those of a
steam siren, which it seemed incredible should be produced by the human
throat. From time to time a deafening clamor of bells pealed forth with
furious strokes. A derisive chorus near the bull pens chanted the
_gorigori_ of the dead.
Many turned towards the president. When would the second notice be
given? Gallardo wiped off the sweat with his handkerchief, gazing in all
directions as if surprised at the injustice of the public, and making
the bull responsible for all that occurred. At that moment his eyes
rested on Dona Sol's box. She turned her back so as not to see the ring;
perhaps she felt pity for him; perhaps she was ashamed of her
condescensions in the past.
Again he threw himself upon the animal to kill, but few could see what
he did, for he was hidden by the open capes hung continually about him.
The bull fell, a stream of blood gushing out of his mouth.
At last! The public became less restless, ceasing to gesticulate, but
the shouts and hisses continued. The beast was finished by the
_puntillero_; the swords were drawn out, he was harnessed by the head to
a team of mules and dragged from the ring, leaving a broad belt of
smoothed earth and pools of blood which the attendants obliterated with
the rake and baskets of sand.
Gallardo hid himself between barriers, fleeing from the insulting
protests which his presence raised. There he remained, tired and panting
for breath, with his leg aching, but in the midst of his dejection
feeling satisfaction at being free from danger. He had not died on the
wild beast's horns, but he owed his safety to his prudence. Ah, the
public! A multitude of assassins that hankers for a man's death as if
they alone made good use of life and had a family.
His departure from the plaza was sad, behind the crowd that filled the
environs of the ring, the carriages, the automobiles, the long rows of
tram-cars.
His coach rolled along slowly to avoid driving over the groups of
spectators coming out of the plaza. These separated to let the mules
pass, but as they recognized the swordsman they seemed to repent their
amiability. In the movement of their lips Gallardo read tremendous
insults. Other carriages in which rode handsome women in white
_mantillas_ passed near his. Some turned their heads so as not to see
the bull-fighter; others looked on him with eyes of pitying
commiseration.
The _matador_ shrank as if he wished to pass unnoticed. He hid behind
the corpulence of Nacional who rode silent and frowning.
A crowd of boys following the carriage broke out into hisses. Many who
were standing on the sidewalks imitated them, thinking thus to avenge
themselves for their poverty, which had compelled them to remain outside
the plaza the whole afternoon in a vain hope of seeing something.
The news of Gallardo's failure had circulated among them and they
insulted him, glad to humiliate a man who earned enormous riches.
This outburst aroused the swordsman from the mute resignation into which
he had fallen.
"Curse it! But why do they hiss? Have they been at the bull-fight? Have
they paid out their money?"
A stone struck against a wheel of the coach. The vagabonds were shouting
at the very steps, but two guards rode up on horseback and quelled the
disturbance, afterward escorting all the way up Alcala Street the famous
Juan Gallardo--"the greatest man in the world."