When the husband of Señora Angustias died, the Señor Juan Gallardo, an
excellent cobbler long established under a doorway in the suburb de la
Feria, she wept as disconsolately as was appropriate to the event, but
at the same time in the bottom of her heart, she felt the comfort of one
who rests after a long march, and lays down an overwhelming burden.
"Poor dear soul! God has him in His glory! So good! ... so hard
working!"...
During the twenty years of their life together, he had not given her
more troubles than those endured by the other women in the suburb. Of
the three pesetas that, one day with another, he earned by his work, he
gave one to the Señora Angustias for the maintenance of the house and
the family, reserving the other two for the up-keep of his own person,
and the expenses of the "representacions."[48] He must respond to the
civilities of his friends when they invited him to drink a glass, and
the wine of Andalusia, although it is the glory of God, costs dear.
Besides he must inevitably go to the bull-fights, for a man who neither
drinks nor attends corridas ... why is he in the world at all?...
The Señora Angustias, left with her two children, Encarnacion and Juan,
had to sharpen her wits and develop a multiplicity of talents to carry
the family along. She worked as charwoman in the wealthiest houses in
the suburb, sewed for the neighbours, mended clothes and laces for a
certain pawnbroking friend of hers, made cigarettes for gentlemen,
availing herself of the dexterity acquired in her youth when the Señor
Juan, an ardent and wheedling lover, used to wait for her at the
entrance of the Tobacco factory.
She never had to complain of infidelities or bad treatment on the part
of the defunct. On Saturdays when he returned to the house in the small
hours of the night, tipsy, supported by his friends, happiness and
tenderness came with him. The Señora Angustias was obliged forcibly to
push him in, for he persisted in remaining at the door, clapping his
hands, and chanting doleful love songs in a drivelling voice, all in
praise of his voluminous companion. And when at last the door was closed
behind him, and the neighbours deprived of a source of amusement, the
Señor Juan, in the fullness of his drunken sentimentality would insist
on seeing the little ones, kissing them and wetting them with huge
tears, all the while chanting his love songs in honour of the Señora
Angustias (Olé! The best woman in the world!) and the good woman ended
by relaxing her frown and laughing, while she undressed him, and petted
him like a sick child.
This was his only vice. Poor dear! ... of women or gambling there was
never a sign. His selfishness in going well dressed while his family
were in rags, and the inequality in the division of the proceeds of his
work, were compensated for by generous treats. The Señora Angustias
remembered with pride how on the great holidays Juan made her put on her
Manila silk shawl, the wedding mantilla, and with the children in front
walked by her side in a white Cordovan sombrero, with a silver headed
stick, taking a turn through las Delicias,[49] looking just like a
family of tradespeople of the Calle de las Sierpes. On the days of cheap
bull-fights he would treat her magnificently before going to the Plaza,
offering her a glass of Manzanilla in La Campana, or in a café of the
Plaza Nueva.
This happy time was now nothing but a faded though pleasant recollection
in the poor woman's memory.
Señor Juan became ill of consumption, and for two years his wife had to
nurse him, working harder than ever at her various jobs to make up for
the peseta that her husband formerly gave her. Finally he died in the
hospital, resigned to his fate, having come to the conclusion that life
was worth nothing without bulls and Manzanilla. His last looks of love
and gratitude were for his wife, as though he were crying out with his
eyes, "Olé! the best woman in the world!"...
When the Señora Angustias was left alone, her situation became no worse;
on the contrary, she was much less hampered in her movements, freed from
the man who in the last two years of his life had weighed more heavily
on her than all the rest of the family. Being a woman of prompt and
energetic action, she immediately struck out a line for her children.
Encarnacion, who was now seventeen, went to the Tobacco factory, where
her mother was able to introduce her, thanks to her relations with
certain friends of her youth, who were now overseers. Juanillo, who from
his babyhood had spent his days under the doorway in the suburb de la
Feria, watching his father work, should become a shoemaker, by the will
of Señora Angustias.
She took him away from school, where he had only learnt to read very
badly, and at twelve years old he was apprenticed to one of the best
shoemakers in Seville.
Now commenced the martyrdom of the poor woman. Ay! that urchin. The son
of such honoured parents!... Almost every day instead of going to his
master's shop, he would go to the slaughter-house with certain
ragamuffins, who had their meeting place on a bench in the Alameda de
Hercules, and for the amusement of shepherds and slaughtermen, would
venture to throw a cloak before the oxen, frequently getting knocked
over and trampled. The Señora Angustias, who watched many nights needle
in hand, so that her son should go decently clad to the workshop in
clean clothes, would find him at the house door, afraid to come in, but
from the extremity of his hunger equally afraid to run away, with his
trousers torn, his jacket filthy, and bruises and grazes on his face.
To the bruises of the treacherous oxen would be added his mother's blows
and beatings with a broomstick: but the hero of the slaughter-house
endured everything, as long as he could get his poor pittance, "Beat me,
but give me something to eat," and with an appetite sharpened by the
violent exercise, he would swallow the hard bread, the weevilled beans,
the putrefied salt cod, all the damaged goods that the thrifty woman
found in the shops, which enabled her to maintain the family on very
little money.
Busy all day scrubbing the floors of other people's houses, it was only
now and again in the evenings that she was able to look after her son,
going to his master's shop to enquire about the apprentice's progress.
When she returned from the shoemaker's she was usually panting with
rage, promising herself to administer the most stupendous punishments in
order to correct the rascal.
On most days he never went near the shop at all. He spent the mornings
at the slaughter-house, and in the evenings formed one of a group of
other vagabonds at the entrance of the Calle de las Sierpes, prowling
round the groups of toreros without contracts, who assembled in La
Campana, dressed in new clothes with spick and span hats, and scarcely a
peseta between them in their pockets, each one boasting of his own
imaginary exploits.
Juanillo viewed them as creatures of amazing superiority, he envied
their fine carriage, and the coolness with which they ogled the women.
The idea that each one of those men had in his house a set of silk
clothes embroidered with gold, and being dressed in these would march
past before the crowd to the sound of music, produced a shiver of
respect.
The son of Señora Angustias was known to all his ragged companions as
"Zapaterin,"[50] and he seemed delighted at having a nickname, like
almost all the great men who appeared in the circus. Everything must
have a beginning. Round his neck he wore a red handkerchief filched from
his sister, and from beneath his cap the hair fell over his ears in long
locks, which he smoothed with saliva. He wanted to have his drill
blouses made short to the waist with many pleats, his trousers, old
remains of his father's wardrobe, high in the waist, full in the legs,
well fitting over the hips; and he wept with humiliation when his mother
would not give in to these requirements.
A cape! Oh! to possess a fighting cape, not to have to implore the loan
of the coveted garment for a few moments from others more fortunate than
himself!... In a small room in their house lay an old empty mattress
from which Señora Angustias had sold the wool in days of distress. The
Zapaterin spent one morning shut up in that room, taking advantage of
his mother's absence, who was working that day at a canon's house. With
the ingenuity of a ship-wrecked man, left to his own resources on a
desert island, who has to make everything for himself, he cut out a
fighting cape from the damp and ravelled linen. Afterwards he boiled in
a pipkin a handful of red aniline which he had bought at a druggists,
and dipped the old linen in the dye. Then Juanillo looked at the result
of his work. A cape of the most brilliant scarlet which would arouse
many envies at the "capeas" in different villages!... It only wanted
drying. So he hung it in the sun among the neighbours' white clothes.
The wind waving the dripping rag, spotted the neighbouring garments, and
a chorus of maledictions and threats, of clenched fists, and mouths
uttering the most abusive words against him and his mother, obliged the
Zapaterin to seize his cape of glory and bolt; his hands and face
covered with red, as if he had just committed a murder.
The Señora Angustias was a strong woman, obese and mustachioed, who
feared no man, and compelled respect from other women by her energetic
determination, but with her son she was weak and soft-hearted. What
could she do?... She had laid violent hands on every part of the boy's
body, and broom sticks had been broken with no apparent result. That
cursed one, said she, had the hide of a dog. Accustomed out of the house
to the tremendous butting of the calves, the cruel tramplings of the
cows, to the sticks of the herdsmen and slaughtermen, who thrashed the
tauric aspirants without mercy, his mother's blows seemed a natural
event, a continuation of his out-door life prolonged into his family
life, which he accepted without the slightest intention of amendment, as
a fine he had to pay in return for food. So he gnawed the hard bread
with starving gluttony, while the maternal blows and maledictions rained
on his shoulders.
As soon as his hunger was satisfied he ran away from the house, availing
himself of the liberty perforce left by Señora Angustias, who was
absent, busy at her tasks.
In La Campana, the venerable agora of tauric gossip, where all the great
news of the "aficion" circulated, he got tidings from his friends which
made him tremble with delight.
"Zapaterin, there is a corrida to-morrow."
The country villages celebrated the feast-day of their patron saint by
"capeas" of already[51] tried bulls, and there the young toreros walked,
in the hope of being able to say on their return, that they had spread
their cloaks in the celebrated Plazas of Aznalcollar, Bollullos or
Mairena. They would begin their journey at night, with their cloaks over
their shoulders if it were summer, or wrapped round them if it were
winter, their stomachs empty, talking all the time of bulls.
If their tramp lasted several days they would camp on the ground, or be
admitted out of charity to the hay-loft of some inn. Alas! for the
grapes, the melons and the figs they came across on their way in the
warm season. Their only anxiety was lest some other party, some other
cuadrilla should have had the same inspiration, and would arrive in the
town before them, thus establishing a rough competition.
When they came to the end of their journey, their brows dusty and their
mouths parched, tired and foot weary from the tramp, they presented
themselves before the alcalde, and the boldest among them, who fulfilled
the functions of director spoke of the merits of the troup, who thought
themselves lucky if municipal generosity lodged them in the inn stables,
and gave them in addition an "olla"[52] which was emptied in a few
seconds.
In the square of the town, enclosed with carts and boarded scaffolding,
old bulls would be loosed, veritable castles of flesh, covered with
seams and scars, with enormous sharp horns, brutes that for many years
had been baited at all the holidays in the province, venerable animals
who "knew Latin."[53] Their cunning was so great that accustomed to the
perpetual baiting they were in the secrets of all the possibilities of
the fight. The boys of the town pricked these beasts from a safe place,
and the people derived more amusement from the "toreros" from Seville
even than from the bull. The youngsters spread their cloaks with
trembling legs, but their hearts comforted by the weight in their
stomachs. There was great delight among the crowd when any one of them
was knocked over; and when any lad among them in sudden terror took
refuge behind the palisades, the peasant barbarians received him with
insults, striking the hands clutching hold of the wood, and thrashing
him on the legs to make him jump again into the Plaza. "Arre, coward!
show your face to the bull. Cheat!"
Sometimes one of the "diestros" would be carried out of the Plaza by
four of his companions, pale with the whiteness of paper, his eyes
glassy, his head hanging, and his breast heaving like a broken bellows.
The barber would arrive, reassuring them all as he saw no blood, it was
only the shock the lad had suffered in being tossed to a distance of
several yards, and falling on the ground like a bundle of clothes. At
other times it was the agony of being trampled under foot by some
enormously heavy animal; then a pail of water would be dashed on his
head, and when he recovered his senses, he would be treated to a long
draught of aguardiente from Cazalla de la Sierra. Not even a prince
could be better cared for, and back he went to the Plaza again.
When the grazier had no more bulls to loose and night was beginning to
fall, two of the cuadrilla, choosing the best cloak of the company, and
holding it by the corners, would go from stand to stand asking for some
gratuity. Copper money would rain into the red cloth according to the
amusement the strangers had given to the inhabitants, and the corrida
being ended they would recommence their tramp home, knowing their credit
at the inn was exhausted. Very often on the way home they quarrelled
over the division of the coins which were carried tied up in a
handkerchief.
All the rest of the week would be spent narrating their exploits before
the wide open eyes of the chums who had not been of the expedition. They
would tell of their "veronicas"[54] in El Garrobo, of their
"navarras"[55] in Lora, or of a terrible goring in El Pedroso, imitating
the airs and attitudes of the true professionals, who, a few steps away
from them, were consoling themselves for their failure to get contracts,
by every sort of bragging and lies.
On one occasion the Señora Angustias was more than a week without news
of her son. At last vague rumours came that he had been wounded in a
"capea" at the village of Tocino. Dios mio! Where might that village be?
How should she get to it?... She made sure her son was dead and wept for
him, nevertheless she wished to go to the place herself. While, however,
she was considering the journey Juanillo arrived, pale and weak, but
speaking with manly pride of his accident.
It was nothing. A prick in the buttock, which, with the shamelessness
born of his triumph he wished to show to all the neighbours, declaring
that he could put his finger in several inches without its coming to the
end. He was proud of the smell of iodoform which he dispersed as he
passed, and he spoke gratefully of the attentions which had been paid to
him in that town, which, according to him, was the finest in all Spain.
The richest people there, the aristocracy as one might say, were
interested in his mishap, and the alcalde had been to see him,
afterwards giving him his return fare. He still had three duros in his
purse, which he made over to his mother with the air of a grand
gentleman. So much fame at fourteen! His pride was all the greater when
in La Campana, several toreros (real toreros) deigned to take notice of
him, enquiring how his wound was getting on.
After this accident he never again returned to his master's shop. He
knew now what bulls were, and his wound only served to increase his
boldness. He would be a torero; and nothing but a torero! The Señora
Angustias abandoned all her projects of correction, judging them to be
useless. She tried to ignore her son's existence. When he arrived home
at night, at the time his mother and sister were supping together, they
gave him his food in silence, intending to crush him with their
contempt, but this in no way interfered with his appetite. If he arrived
late, they did not even keep a scrap of bread for him, and he was
obliged to go out again, as empty as he had come in.
He was one of the evening promenaders in the Alameda de Hercules, with
other vicious-eyed lads, a confused mixture of apprentices, criminals,
and toreros. The neighbours met him sometimes in the streets talking to
young gentlemen whose airs made the women laugh, or grave caballeros to
whom slander gave feminine nicknames. Sometimes he would sell
newspapers, or during the great festivals of Holy Week he would sell
packets of caramels in the Plaza de San Francisco. At the time of the
fair, he would loiter about the hotels waiting for an "Englishman,"
because for him all travellers were English, hoping to be engaged as
guide.
"Milord!... I am a torero!" ... he would say, seeing a foreign figure,
as if this professional qualification was an undeniable recommendation
to strangers.
In order to establish his identity, he would take off his cap, letting
the pigtail fall down behind, the long lock of hair which as a rule he
wore rolled up on the top of his head.
His companion in wretchedness was Chiripa, a lad of the same age, small
of body and malicious of eye. He had neither father nor mother, and had
wandered about Seville ever since he could remember anything. He
exercised over Juanillo all the influence of greater experience. He had
one cheek scarred by a bull's horn, and this visible wound the Zapaterin
considered greatly superior to his invisible one.
When at the door of an hotel some lady, bitten by the idea of "local
colour," spoke with the young toreros, admired their pig-tails, listened
to the stories of their exploits, and ended by giving them some money,
Chiripa would say in a whining voice.
"Do not give it to him, he has a mother, and I am alone in the world. He
who has a mother does not know what he has!"
And the Zapaterin, seized with a feeling of compunction, would allow the
other lad to take possession of all the money, murmuring:
"That is true; that is true."
This filial tenderness did not prevent Juanillo continuing his abnormal
existence, only putting in an occasional appearance at Señora Angustias'
house, and often undertaking long journeys away from Seville.
Chiripa was a past master of a vagabond life. On the days of a corrida
he would make up his mind to get into the Plaza de Toros somehow with
his comrade, and would employ for this end every sort of stratagem, such
as scaling the walls, slipping in among the people unperceived, or even
softening the officials by humble prayers. A fiesta taurina,[56] and
they who were of the profession not there to see it!... When there were
no "capeas" in the provincial towns, they would go and spread their
cloaks before the young bulls in the pastures of Tablada. These
attractions of Sevillian life, however, were not sufficient to satisfy
their ambition.
Chiripa had wandered much, and told his companion of all the things he
had seen in the distant provinces. He was expert in the art of
travelling gratuitously and hiding himself cleverly on the trains. The
Zapaterin listened with delight to his description of Madrid, that city
of dreams with its Bull-ring, which was a kind of Cathedral of
bull-fighting.
One day a gentleman at the door of a café in the Calle de las Sierpes
told them, in order to take a rise out of them, that they might earn a
great deal of money in Bilbao, as toreros did not abound there as they
did in Seville. So the two lads undertook the journey with empty purses,
and no luggage but their capes--real capes, which had belonged to
toreros whose names figured on placards, and bought by them for a few
reals in an old clothes shop.
They crept cautiously into the trains, hiding themselves beneath the
seats, but hunger and other necessities obliged them to divulge their
presence to their fellow travellers, who ended by pitying their plight,
laughing at the queer figures they cut, with their pig-tails and capes,
and finally giving them the remains of their victuals. When any official
gave chase at the stations, they would run from carriage to carriage, or
try to climb on the roofs to await, lying flat, the starting of the
train. Many times they were caught, seized by the ears to the
accompaniment of blows and kicks, and left, standing on the platform of
a lonely station, to watch the train vanish like a lost hope.
They would wait for the passing of the next train, bivouacing in the
open air, or if they found they were being watched would start to walk
over the deserted fields to the next station, in the hope that there
they would be more fortunate. And so they arrived at Madrid after an
adventurous journey of many days, with long waits and not a few cuffs.
In the Calle de Sevilla and the Puerta del Sol, they admired the groups
of unemployed toreros, superior beings, from whom they ventured to
beg--without any result--a little alms to continue their journey. A
servant of the Plaza de Toros who came from Seville had pity on them,
and let them sleep in the stables, procuring them further the delight of
seeing a corrida of young bulls in the famous circus, which, however,
did not seem to them as imposing as the one in their own country.
Frightened at their own daring, and seeing the end of their excursion
ever further and further off, they decided to return to Seville in the
same way that they had come, but from that time they took a pleasure in
these stolen journeys on the railway. They travelled to many places of
small importance in the different Andalusian provinces, whenever they
heard vague rumours of "fiestas" with their corresponding "capeas." In
this way they travelled as far as La Mancha, and Estremadura, and if bad
luck obliged them to go on foot, they took refuge in the hovels of the
peasants, credulous, good-natured people, who were astounded at their
youth, their daring and their bombastic talk, and took them for real
toreros.
This wandering existence made them exercise the cunning of primitive
man to satisfy their wants. In the neighbourhood of country houses, they
would crawl on their stomachs to steal the vegetables without being
seen. They would watch whole hours for a solitary hen to come near them,
and having wrung her neck would proceed on their tramp, to light a fire
of dry wood in the middle of the day, and swallow the poor bird scorched
and half raw with the voracity of little savages. The field mastiffs
they feared more than bulls; these watchdogs were difficult brutes to
fight, when they rushed upon the boys showing their fangs, as if the
strange aspect of the latter infuriated them and they scented enemies to
personal property.
Sometimes when they were sleeping in the open air near a station waiting
for a train to pass, a couple of Civil Guards would rouse them. However,
the guardians of law and order were pacified when they saw the red cloth
bundles which served these vagabonds as pillows. Very civilly they would
take off the urchins' caps, and finding the hairy appendage of the
pig-tail, they would move off laughing, and make no further enquiries.
They were not little thieves; they were "aficionados" going to the
"capeas." In this tolerance there was a mixture of sympathy for the
national pastime, and respect towards the obscurity of the future. Who
could tell if perhaps one of these ragged lads, with poverty stricken
exterior, might not become in the future a "star of the art," a great
man who would pledge[57] bulls to kings, would live like a prince, and
whose exploits and sayings would be recorded in the newspapers!
At last an evening came, when, in a town of Estremadura the Zapaterin
found himself alone.
In order the more to astonish the rustic audience who were applauding
the famous toreros "come purposely from Seville," the two lads thought
they would fix banderillas in the neck of an old and very tricky bull.
Juanillo had fixed his darts in the beast's neck and stood near a
staging, delighting in receiving the popular ovation, which expressed
itself in tremendous thumps on his back and offers of glasses of wine.
An exclamation of horror startled him out of this intoxication of
triumph. Chiripa was no longer standing on the ground of the Plaza.
Nothing remained of him but the banderillas rolling on the ground, one
slipper and his cap. The bull was tossing his head as if irritated at
some obstacle, carrying impaled on one of his horns a bundle of clothes
like a doll. By violent head-shakes the shapeless bundle was flung off
the horn pouring out a red stream, but before it reached the ground it
was caught by the other horn, and twirled about for some time. At last
the luckless bundle fell into the dust, and lay there limp and lifeless,
pouring out blood, like a pierced wine skin letting out the wine in
jets.
The grazier with his bell oxen drew the brute into the yard, for no one
dared to approach him, and the unhappy Chiripa was carried on a straw
mattress to a room in the Town Hall which usually served as a prison.
His companion saw him there with his face as white as plaster, his eyes
dull, and his body red with blood which the cloths soaked in
vinegar--applied in default of anything better--were unable to staunch.
"Adio, Zapaterin!" he sighed. "Adio, Juaniyo!" and spoke no more.
The dead lad's companion, quite overcome, started on his return to
Seville, haunted by those glassy eyes, hearing those moaning farewells.
He was afraid. A quiet cow crossing his path would have made him run. He
thought of his mother and the wisdom of her advice. Would it not be
better to devote himself to shoe-making and live quietly?... Those
ideas, however, only lasted as long as he was alone.
On arriving in Seville he once more felt the influence of the pervading
atmosphere. His friends surrounded him anxious to hear every detail of
poor Chiripa's death. The professional toreros enquired about it in La
Campana, recalling pitifully the little rascal with the scarred face who
had run so many errands for them. Juan, fired by such marks of
consideration, gave rein to his powerful imagination, and described how
he had thrown himself on the bull when he saw his unlucky companion
caught, how he had seized the brute by the tail, with other portentous
exploits, in spite of which poor Chiripa had made his exit from this
world.
This painful impression soon disappeared. He would be a torero and
nothing but a torero; if others became that, why not he? He thought of
the weevilled beans, and his mother's dry bread, of the abuse which each
new pair of trousers drew on him, of hunger, the inseparable companion
of so many of his expeditions. Besides he felt a vehement longing for
all the enjoyments and luxuries of life, he looked with envy at the
coaches and horses; he stood absorbed before the doorways of the great
houses, through whose iron wickets he could see court-yards of oriental
luxury, with arcades of Moorish tiles; floors of marble and murmuring
fountains, which dropped a shower of pearls day and night over basins
surrounded by green leaves. His fate was decided. He would kill bulls or
die. He would be rich, so that the newspapers should speak of him, and
people bow before him, even though it were at the cost of his life. He
despised the inferior ranks of the torero. He saw the banderilleros who
risked their lives, just like the masters of the profession, receive
thirty duros only for each corrida, and, after a life of fatigues and
gorings, with no future for their old age but some wretched little shop
started with their savings, or some employment at a slaughter-house.
Many died in hospitals; the majority begged for charity from their
younger companions. Nothing for him of banderilleros, or of spending
many years in a cuadrilla, under the despotism of a master! He would
kill bulls from the first and tread the sand of the Plazas as an espada
at once.
The misfortune of poor Chiripa gave him a certain ascendancy among his
companions, and he formed a cuadrilla, a ragged cuadrilla who tramped
after him to the "capeas" in the villages. They respected him because he
was the bravest and the best dressed. Several girls of loose life
attracted by the manly beauty of the Zapaterin, who was now eighteen,
and also by the prestige of his pig-tail, quarrelled among themselves in
noisy rivalry, as to who should have the care of his comely person.
Added to this, he now reckoned on a Godfather, an old patron and former
magistrate, who had a weakness for smart young toreros, but whose
intimacy with her son made Señora Angustias furious, and caused her to
give vent to all the most obscene expressions she had learnt while she
was at the Tobacco factory.
The Zapaterin wore suits of English woollen cloth well fitted to his
elegant figure, and his hats were always spick and span. His female
associates looked to the scrupulous whiteness of his collars and shirt
fronts, and on great days he wore over his waistcoat a double chain of
gold like ladies wear, a loan from his respected friend, which had
already figured round the necks of several youngsters who were beginning
their careers.
He now mixed with the real toreros, and he could afford to stand treat
to the old servants who remembered the exploits of the famous masters.
It was rumoured as true, that certain patrons were working in favour of
this "lad," and were only waiting for a propitious occasion for his
début, at the baiting of novillos[58] in the Plaza of Seville.
The Zapaterin was already a matador. One day at Lebrija, a most lively
bull was turned into the arena, his companions egged him on to the
supreme feat: "Do you dare to put your hand to him?" ... and he did put
his hand. Afterwards, emboldened by the facility with which he had come
out of the peril, he went to all the "capeas" in which it was announced
that the novillos would be killed, and to all the farm houses where they
baited and killed cattle.
The proprietor of La Rinconada--a rich grange with its own small
bull-ring--was an enthusiast, who kept the table laid, and his hay-loft
open for all the starving "aficionados" who wished to amuse themselves
fighting his cattle. Juanillo had been there in the days of his poverty
with other companions, to eat to the health of the rural hidalgo. They
would arrive on foot after a two days' tramp, and the proprietor seeing
the dusty troup with their bundles of cloaks would say solemnly:
"To whoever does best, I will give his ticket to return to Seville by
train."
The master of the farm spent two days smoking in the balcony of his
Plaza, whilst the youngsters from Seville fought his young bulls, being
often knocked over and pawed.
"That's no use whatever, blunderer!" he would cry, reproving a cloak
pass ill delivered.
"Up from the ground, coward!... And tell them to give you some wine to
get over your fright," ... he would shout when a lad continued lying
full length on the ground after a bull had passed over his body.
The Zapaterin killed a novillo so much to the taste of its owner, that
the latter seated him at his own table, while his comrades remained in
the kitchen with the shepherds and labourers, dipping their horn spoons
into the common steaming pot.
"You have earned your journey in the railway, Gacho. You will go far, if
your heart does not fail you. You have capabilities."
When the Zapaterin began his return journey to Seville in a second-class
carriage, while the cuadrilla commenced theirs on foot, he thought a new
life was opening for him, and he cast looks of envy on the enormous
grange, with its extensive olive-yards, its mills, its pastures which
lost themselves to sight, on which thousands of goats grazed and bulls
and cows ruminated quietly with their legs tucked under them. What
wealth! If he could only some day arrive at possessing something
similar!
The fame of his prowess in baiting the young bulls in the villages
reached Seville, attracting the notice of some of the restless and
insatiable amateurs, who were always hoping for the rise of a new star
to eclipse the existing ones.
"He looks a promising lad" ... they said, seeing him pass along the
Calle de las Sierpes, with a short step swinging his arms proudly. "We
shall have to see him on the 'true ground.'"
This ground for them and for the Zapaterin was the circus of the Plaza
of Seville. The youngster was soon to find himself face to face with
"the truth."[59] His protector had acquired for him a gala dress a
little used, the cast-off finery of some nameless matador. A corrida of
novillos was being organized for some charitable purpose, and some
influential amateurs, anxious for novelty, succeeded in including him
in the programme--gratuitously--as matador.
The son of Señora Angustias would not allow himself to be announced on
the placards by his nickname of Zapaterin, which he wished to forget. He
would have nothing to do with nicknames, still less with any subordinate
employment. He wished to be known by his father's names, he intended to
be Juan Gallardo; and that no nickname should remind the great people,
who in the future would indubitably be his friends, of his low origin.
All the suburb of la Feria rushed "en masse" to the corrida, with
turbulent and patriotic ardour. Those of la Macarena also showed their
interest, and all the other workmen's suburbs were roused to the same
enthusiasm. A new Sevillian Matador!... There were not places enough for
all, and thousands of people remained outside anxiously awaiting news of
the corrida.
Gallardo baited, killed, was rolled over by a bull without being
wounded; keeping his audience on tenter hooks with his audacities, which
in most cases turned out luckily, provoking immense howls of enthusiasm.
Certain amateurs whose opinions were worthy of respect smiled
complacently. He still had a great deal to learn, but he had courage and
goodwill, which is the most important thing. Above all he goes in to
kill truly, and he is at last on the "true ground."
During the corrida the good-looking girls, friends of the diestro,
rushed about frantic with enthusiasm, with hysterical contortions,
tearful eyes, and slobbering mouths, making use in broad daylight of all
the loving words they generally kept for night. One flung her cloak into
the arena, another, to go one better, her blouse and her stays, another
tore off her skirt, till the spectators seized hold of them laughing,
fearing they would throw themselves next into the arena, or remain in
their shifts.
On the other side of the Plaza, the old magistrate smiled tenderly
under his white beard, admiring the youngster's courage, and thinking
how well the gala dress became him. On seeing him rolled over by the
bull, he threw himself back in his seat as if he were fainting. That was
too much for him.
Between the barriers Encarnacion's husband strutted with pride, he was a
saddler with a small open shop; a prudent man, detesting vagrancy, he
had fallen in love with the cigarette maker's charms, and married her,
but on the express condition of having nothing to do with that bad lot,
her brother.
Gallardo, offended by his brother-in-law's sour face, had never
attempted to set foot in his shop, situated on the outskirts of la
Macarena, neither had he ever ceased to use the ceremonious "Uste" when
he met him sometimes in the evening at Señora Angustias' house.
"I am going to see how they will pelt that vagabond brother of yours
with oranges to make him run," he had said to his wife as he left for
the Plaza.
But now from his seat he was applauding the diestro, shouting to him as
Juaniyo, calling him "tu," peacocking with delight when the youngster,
attracted by the shouting at last saw him, and replied with a wave of
his rapier.
"He is my brother-in-law" ... explained the saddler, in order to attract
the attention of those around him. "I have always thought that youngster
would be something in the bull-fighting line. My wife and I have helped
him a great deal."
The exit was triumphal. The crowd threw themselves on Juanillo, as if
they intended to devour him in their expansive delight. It was a mercy
his brother-in-law was there to restore order, to cover him with his
body, and conduct him to the hired carriage, in which he finally took
his seat by the side of the Novillero.
When they arrived at the little house in the suburb of la Feria, an
immense crowd followed the carriage, and like all popular manifestations
they were shouting vivas which made the inhabitants run to their doors.
The news of his triumph had arrived before the diestro, and all the
neighbours ran to look at him and shake his hand.
The Señora Angustias and her daughter were standing at the house door.
The saddler almost lifted his brother-in-law out in his arms,
monopolizing him, shouting and gesticulating in the name of the family
to prevent anyone touching him as though he were a sick man.
"Here he is; Encarnacion"--he said pushing him towards his wife. "He is
the real Roger de Flor!"[60]
Encarnacion did not need to ask any more, for she knew that her husband,
as a result of some far off and confused reading, considered this
historic personage as the embodiment of all greatness, and only ventured
to join his name to portentous events.
Other neighbours who had come from the corrida insinuatingly flattered
Señora Angustias, as they looked admiringly at her portly figure.
Blessed be the mother who bore so brave a son!...
The poor woman's eyes wore an expression of bewilderment and doubt.
Could it be really her Juanillo who was making everyone run about so
enthusiastically?... Had they all gone mad?
But suddenly she threw herself upon him, as if all the past had
vanished, as if her sorrows and rages were a dream; as if she were
confessing to a shameful error. Her enormous flabby arms were flung
round the torero's neck, and tears wetted one of his cheeks.
"My son! Juaniyo!... If your poor father could see you!"
"Don't cry, mother ... for this is a happy day. You will see. If God
gives me luck I will build you a house, and your friends shall see you
in a carriage, and you shall wear a Manila shawl which will make
everyone...."
The saddler acknowledged those promises of grandeur with affirmative
nods, standing opposite his bewildered wife, who had not yet got over
her surprise at this radical change. "Yes, Encarnacion; this youngster
can do everything if he takes the trouble ... he was extraordinary! the
real Roger de Flor himself!"
That night in the taverns of the people's suburbs, nothing was talked of
but Gallardo.
The torero of the future. As startling as the roses! This lad will take
off the chignons[61] of all the Cordovan caliphs.
In this speech Sevillian pride was latent, the perpetual rivalry with
the people of Cordova, also a country of fine bull-fighters.
From that day forward Gallardo's life was completely changed. The
gentlemen saluted him and made him sit among them in front of the cafés.
The girls who formerly kept him from hunger, and looked after his
adornment found themselves little by little repelled with smiling
contempt. Even the old protector withdrew in view of certain rebuffs,
and transferred his tender friendship to other youths who were
beginning.
The management of the Plaza de Toros sought out Gallardo, flattering him
as though he were already a celebrity. When his name was announced on
the placards, the result was certain: a bumper house. The rabble
applauded Señora Angustias' son with transports, telling tales of his
courage. Gallardo's renown soon spread throughout Andalusia, and the
saddler, without anyone having asked for his assistance, now mixed
himself up in everything, arrogating to himself the rôle of protector of
his brother-in-law's interests.
He was a hard-headed man, very expert, according to himself, in
business, and he saw his line of life marked out for ever.
"Your brother ..." he said at nights to his wife as they were going to
bed ... "wants a practical man at his side who will look after his
interest. Do you think it would be a bad thing for him to name me his
manager? It would be a great thing for him. He is better than Roger de
Flor! And for us...."
The saddler's imagination pictured to himself the great wealth that
Gallardo would acquire, and he thought also of the five children he
already had and of the rest which would surely follow, for he was a man
of unwearied and prolific conjugal fidelity. Who knew if what the espada
earned might not eventually be for one of his nephews!...
For a year and a half Juan killed novillos in the best Plazas in Spain.
His fame had even reached Madrid. The amateurs of that town were curious
to know the "Sevillian lad" of whom the newspapers spoke so much, and of
whom the intelligent Andalusians told such stories.
Gallardo escorted by a party of friends from his own country, who were
living in Madrid, swaggered on the pavement of the Calle de Sevilla near
the Café Ingles. The girls smiled at his gallantries, fixing their eyes
on the torero's thick gold chain and his large diamonds, jewels bought
with his first earnings and on the credit of those of the future. A
matador ought to show by the adornment of his person, and also by his
generous treatment of everyone, that he has over and above enough
money. How distant those days seemed, when he and poor Chiripa,
vagabonds on that same pavement, in fear of the police, looked at the
toreros with wondering eyes and picked up the fag ends of their cigars!
His work in Madrid was fortunate. He made friendships, and soon gathered
round him a party of enthusiasts, anxious for novelty, who also
proclaimed him "the torero of the future," protesting loudly at his not
yet having received "la alternativa."
"He will earn money by basketsful, Encarnacion," said his
brother-in-law. "He will have millions, unless any bad accident happens
to him."
The family life had completely changed. Gallardo, who now mixed with the
gentry of Seville, did not care for his mother to continue living in the
hovel of the days of her poverty. For his own part, he would have liked
to move into the best street in the town, but Señora Angustias wished to
remain faithful to the suburb of la Feria, with that love which simple
people feel as they grow older for the places in which their youth has
been spent.
They now lived in a much better house. The mother no longer worked, and
the neighbours courted her, foreseeing in her a generous lender in their
days of distress. Juan, besides the heavy and startling jewelry with
which he adorned his person, possessed that supreme luxury of a torero,
a powerful sorrel mare, with a Moorish saddle, and a large blanket,
adorned with multi-coloured tassels rolled up on the bow. Mounted on her
he trotted through the streets, his only object being to receive the
homage of his friends who greeted his elegance with noisy Olé's. This
for the time being satisfied his desire for popularity. At other times
joining some gentlemen, the gallant cavalcade would ride to the pastures
of Tablada, on the eve of some great corrida, to inspect the cattle
that others were to kill.
When I shall have received "la Alternativa" ... he said perpetually,
making all his plans for the future depend on this event.
For that future time he also left several projects with which he
intended to surprise his mother; who, poor woman! already frightened by
the comfort which had crept suddenly into her house, would have thought
any farther augmentation an impossibility.
At last the day of "la Alternativa" arrived, the public recognition of
Gallardo as matador.
A celebrated master ceded his sword and muleta to him in the full circus
in Seville, the crowd were nearly mad with delight, seeing how he killed
with one sword thrust the first "formal"[62] bull which was placed
before him. The following month this doctorate of tauromachia was
countersigned in the Plaza in Madrid, where another no less celebrated
master gave him "la Alternativa" in a corrida of bulls from Muira.
He was now no longer a novillero; he was a recognized matador, and his
name figured on the placards by the side of all the old espadas, whom he
had admired as unapproachable divinities, in the days when he went
through the little towns taking part in the "capeas." He remembered
having waited for one of them at a station near Cordova to beg a little
help from him as he passed with his cuadrilla. That night he had
something to eat, thanks to the fraternal generosity existing between
the people of the pigtail, and which made an espada living in princely
luxury give a duro and a cigar to the needy wretch who was trying his
first "capeas."
Engagements began to pour in to the new espada. In all the Plazas of
the Peninsula they were curious to see him. The professional papers
popularized his portrait and his life, not without adding romantic
episodes to this latter. No matador had as many engagements as he had,
and it would not be long before he made a fortune.
Antonio, his brother-in-law, viewed this success with scowling brow and
grumbling protests to his wife and his mother-in-law. The fellow was
ungrateful; it was the way of all those who rose too rapidly. Just think
how he had worked for Juan! How obstinately he had discussed matters
with Managers when they were arranging the runs of Novillos!... And now
that he was "Maestro" he had taken for agent a certain Don José, whom he
scarcely knew, who did not belong in any way to the family, and for whom
Gallardo had taken a great affection simply because he was an old
amateur.
He will suffer for it; he ended by saying: "One can only have one
family. Where will he meet with affection like ours, who have known him
since his earliest childhood? So much the worse for him! With me, he
would have been like the real Roger...."
But here he stopped short, swallowing the rest of the famous name, from
fear of the laughter of the banderilleros and amateurs who frequented
the matador's house, and who had not been slow in noticing this
historical adoration of the saddler's.
Gallardo, with the good nature of a successful man, had endeavoured to
give his brother-in-law some compensation, entrusting him with the
supervision of the house he was building. He gave him carte-blanche for
all expenses, for the espada, bewildered with the ease with which money
was pouring into his hands, was not sorry his brother-in-law should make
a profit, and he was pleased to make it up to him in this way for not
having retained him as agent.
The torero was now able to carry out his cherished wish of building a
house for his mother. The poor woman, who had spent her life in
scrubbing rich people's floors, was now to have her own beautiful
patio,[63] with arches of Moorish tiles, and marble floors, her rooms
with furniture like that of the gentry, and servants, a great many
servants, to wait on her. Gallardo also felt himself drawn by
traditional affection to the suburbs where he had spent his miserable
childhood. It pleased him to dazzle the people who had employed his
mother as charwoman, or to give a handful of pesetas in times of
distress to those who had taken their shoes to his father to mend, or
had even given himself a crust of bread when he was starving.
He bought several old houses, amongst them the very one with the doorway
under which his father had worked, pulled them down, and commenced a
fine building, which should have white walls, the iron work of its
windows and balconies painted green, a vestibule with a dado of Moorish
tiles, and an iron wicket of fine workmanship, through which would be
seen the patio with its fountain, and arcades with marble pillars
between which would hang gilded cages full of singing birds.
The pleasure his brother-in-law felt on finding himself completely at
liberty with regard to the direction and progress of the works, was
damped by a terrible piece of news.
Gallardo had a sweetheart. It was then full summer and the matador was
travelling from end to end of Spain, from one Plaza to another, giving
estocades, and receiving tumultuous applause; but almost every day he
wrote to a young girl in the suburb, and during the brief respite
between two corridas, he would leave his companions, taking the train
to spend a night in Seville "Pelando la Pava"[64] with her.
"Just fancy that," cried the saddler aghast, in what he called "the
bosom of the hearth," that is to his wife and mother-in-law. "A
sweetheart, without ever saying a word to his family, which is the only
real thing that exists in this world! The Señor wishes to marry--no
doubt he is tired of us.... What a shame!"
Encarnacion assented to her husband's grumbles by energetic nods of her
fierce looking but handsome head, pleased on the whole to express what
she thought about that brother, whose good fortune had always been a
source of envy. Yes, no doubt he had always been utterly shameless.
But his mother raised her voice.
"As for that--No. I know the girl, and her poor mother was a friend of
mine at the Fabrica. She is as pure as a river of gold, well mannered,
good--handsome.... I have already told Juan that as far as I am
concerned ... the sooner the better."
She was an orphan living with some uncles who kept a small provision
shop in the suburb. Her father, a former wine merchant, had left her two
houses in the suburb of la Macarena.
"It is not much," said Señora Angustias; "still the girl will not come
empty handed, she brings something of her own.... And for clothes?
Jesus; those little hands are worth their weight in gold, see how she
embroiders; how she is preparing her dowry!"
Gallardo remembered vaguely having played with her as a child, close to
the doorway where the cobbler worked, while their mothers gossiped. She
was then like a little dry, dark lizard with gipsy eyes, the whole
pupil as black as a drop of ink, the whites blueish and the corners
pale pink. When she ran, nimbly as a boy, she showed legs like thin
reeds, and her hair flew wildly about her head in rebellious and tangled
curls like black snakes. Afterwards he had lost sight of her, not
meeting her again till many years after when he was a novillero, and was
already beginning to make a name.
It was on a day of Corpus, one of the few festivals in which the women,
generally kept at home by their almost Oriental laziness, all come forth
like Moorish women set at liberty, in their lace mantillas, pinned to
their breasts with bunches of carnations, Gallardo saw a young girl,
tall, slim but at the same time strongly built, her waist well poised
above her curved and ample hips, showing the vigour of youth. Her face,
of a rice-like paleness, flushed as she saw the torero, and her eyes
fell, hidden beneath their long lashes.
That gachi knows me, ... thought Gallardo vainly, most probably she has
seen me in the Plaza.
But after following the young girl and her aunt he learnt that it was
Carmen, the playmate of his childhood, and he felt confused and
delighted at the marvellous transformation of the little black lizard of
former days.
In a short time they became betrothed, and all the neighbours spoke of
the courtship, which they considered so flattering to the suburb.
"I am like that," said Gallardo, assuming the air of a good prince. "I
do not care to imitate those toreros who, when they marry ladies, marry
nothing but hats, and feathers and flounces, I prefer what belongs to my
own class, a rich shawl, a good figure, grace.... Olé, ya!"
His friends, delighted, hastened to praise the girl.
A queenly presence, curves that would drive anyone mad, and such a
figure....
But the torero frowned. Enough of these jests if you please. Eh? And
the less you all talk of Carmen the better.
One night, as he was talking with her through the iron grating of her
window, and looking at her Moorish face framed among the pots of
flowers, the waiter from a neighbouring tavern came bearing a tray on
which stood two glasses of Manzanilla. It was the messenger come to
"Cobrar el piso,"[65] the traditional Sevillian custom, which allows of
this offering to fiancés as they talk at the grating.
The torero drank a glass, offering the other to Carmen, and then said to
the boy:
"Thank these gentlemen very much from me, and say I will look in
presently; ... tell Montañes also that he is not to take any payment
from them, for Juan Gallardo will pay for everything."
And as soon as his interview with his lady-love was ended, he walked
across to the tavern where those who had offered the civility were
waiting for him, some of them friends, others strangers, but all anxious
to drink a glass at the espada's expense.
On his return from his first tour as recognized matador, he spent his
nights standing by the iron grating of Carmen's window, wrapped in his
elegant and luxurious cape of a greenish cloth embroidered with sprays
and arabesques in black silk.
"They tell me you drink a great deal," sighed Carmen, pressing her face
against the iron grating.
"What nonsense!... Only the civilities of my friends that I am obliged
to return, nothing more. And besides, you see, a torero is ... a torero,
and he cannot live like a brother of 'the Mercy.'"
"They tell me also that you go with loose women."
"Lies!... That might have been in former days before I knew you.
Rascals! Curse them! I should like to know who the slanderers are who
whisper such things to you...."
"And when shall we be married?" she continued, cutting short her lover's
indignation by this query.
"As soon as the house is finished, and would to God that were to-morrow!
That blockhead, my brother-in-law, never gets done with it. The rascal
finds it profitable and rests on his oars."
"I will get everything into order when we are married, Juaniyo. You will
see, everything will go on all right, and you will see how your mother
loves me."
And so the dialogues went on, while they were waiting for the marriage
of which all Seville was talking. Carmen's uncle talked over the affair
with Señora Angustias, whenever they met, but all the same, the torero
scarcely ever set foot in Carmen's house, it seemed as though some
terrible prohibition forbade him the door, anyhow the two preferred to
see each other at the grating according to custom.
The winter was passing by, Gallardo rode and hunted over the country
estates of several wealthy gentlemen, who used the familiar "thou" with
a patronizing air. It was necessary for him to preserve his bodily
agility by continual exercise, till the time of the corridas came round
again. He was afraid of losing his great advantages of strength and
lightness.
The most indefatigable advertiser of his fame was Don José, the
gentleman who acted as his agent, and who called him "his own matador."
He had a hand in every act of Gallardo's, not even yielding any prior
claims to "the family." He lived on his own income, and had no other
employment than that of talking perpetually of bulls and toreros. For
him there was nothing interesting in the world beyond corridas, and he
divided the nations into two classes, the elect who had bull-rings, and
the numberless others who had neither sun, gaiety, nor good Manzanilla,
and yet thought themselves powerful and happy, although they had never
seen even the worst run of novillos.
He carried to his love of "the sport" the energy of a champion of the
faith, or of an inquisitor. Although he was young he was stout and
slightly bald with a light beard; but this sociable man, so jovial and
laughter-loving in ordinary life, was fierce and unbending on the
benches of a Plaza, if his neighbours expressed opinions differing from
his own. He felt himself capable of fighting the whole audience for a
torero he liked, and he disturbed the plaudits of the public by
unexpected objections, when those plaudits were given to any torero who
had not been lucky enough to gain his affection.
He had been a cavalry officer, more on account of his love of horses
than of his love of war. His stoutness and his enthusiasm for bulls had
made him retire from the service.... Oh! to be the guide, the mentor,
the agent of an espada!
When he became possessed of this vehement desire, all the "maestros"
were already provided, so the advent of Gallardo was a God-send to him.
The slightest doubt cast on his hero's merits made him crimson with
rage, and he generally ended by turning a bull-fighting discussion into
a personal quarrel. He considered it a glorious heroic act to have come
to blows with two evil minded amateurs who censured "his own matador"
for being too bold.
The press seemed to him quite insufficient to proclaim Gallardo's fame,
so on winter mornings he would go and sit at a sunny corner at the
entrance of the Calle de las Sierpes, through which most of his friends
passed.
"No. There is only one man!" he would say in a loud voice as if talking
to himself, pretending not to see the people who were approaching. "The
first man in the world! If anyone thinks the contrary let him speak....
Yes, the only man!"
"Who?" enquired his friends chuckling, pretending not to understand.
"Who should it be?" ... "Juan."
"What Juan?"
A gesture of indignation and surprise.
"What Juan is it? As if there were many Juans!... Juan Gallardo."
"Bless the man!" said some of them, "one would think it was you who were
going to marry him!"
Seeing other friends approaching he ignored their chaff, and began
again:
"No, there is only one man!... The first man in the world! If anyone
doesn't believe it, let him open his beak! ... here am I to answer!"
Gallardo's wedding was a great event. At the same time the new house was
inaugurated, of which the saddler was so proud, that he showed the
patio, the columns, and the Moorish tiles, as if they were all the work
of his own hands.
They were married in San Gil, before the "Virgin of Hope," also called
la Macarena. As they came out of the church the sun shone on the
tropical flowers and painted birds on hundreds of shawls of Chinese
design, worn by the bride's friends. A deputy was best man, among the
black or white felt hats, shone the tall silk ones of his agent and
other gentlemen, enthusiastic supporters of Gallardo, who smiled, well
pleased with the increase of popularity they gained by being seen at the
torero's side.
At the house door during the day there was a distribution of alms; many
poor people had come even from distant villages, attracted by the
reports of this splendid wedding.
There was a grand repast in the patio and several photographers took
snapshots for the Madrid papers, for Gallardo's wedding was a national
event. Well on in the night the melancholy tinkling of the guitars was
still going on, accompanied by the rhythmic clapping of hands and the
rattle of castanets. The girls, their arms raised, danced with dainty
feet on the marble pavement, and skirts and shawls waved round the
pretty figures in the rhythm of Sevillanas. Bottle of rich Andalusian
wine were opened by the dozen, glasses of hot Jerez, of heady Montilla,
and Manzanilla of San Lucar, pale and perfumed, passed from hand to
hand. They were all tipsy, but their drunkenness was gentle, quiet, and
melancholy, and only betrayed itself in their sighs and songs; often
several would start at once singing melancholy airs, which spoke of
prisons, murders and the "poor mother," that eternal theme of Andalusian
popular songs.
At midnight the last of the guests departed, and the newly-married
couple were left alone in their house with Señora Angustias. The saddler
on leaving made a gesture of despair; tipsy, he was besides furious, for
no one had taken any notice of him during the day. Just as if he were a
nobody! As if he did not belong to the family!
"They are turning us out, Encarnacion. That girl with her face like the
'Virgin of Hope,' will be mistress of everything, and there will not
even be _that_ for us! You will see the house full of children!..."
And the prolific husband became furious at the idea of the posterity
that would come to the espada, a posterity sent into the world with the
sole object of damaging his own children.
Time went by and a year passed without Señor Antonio's prognostications
being verified. Gallardo and Carmen went to all the fêtes, with the
ostentation and show suitable to a rich and popular couple. Carmen with
Manila shawls which drew cries of admiration from poorer women; Gallardo
displaying all his diamonds, ever ready to take out his purse to treat
friends, or to help the beggars who came in swarms. The gitanas,
loquacious and copper coloured as witches, besieged Carmen with their
good auguries.... Might God bless her! She would soon have a child, a
"churumbel" more beautiful than the sun. They knew it by the whites of
her eyes. It was already half way on....
But in vain Carmen dropped her eyes and blushed with modesty and
pleasure; in vain the espada drew himself up, proud of his work, and
hoped the prediction would come true. But still the child did not come.
So another year passed, and still the hopes of the couple were not
realized. Señora Angustias became sad as she spoke of their
disappointment. She certainly had other grandchildren, the children of
Encarnacion, whom the saddler was careful should spend most of their
time in their grandmother's house, doing their best to please their
Señor tio.[66] But she, who wished to compensate for her former
unkindness by the warm affection she now showed Juan, wished to have a
son of his to bring up in her own way, giving it all the love she had
been unable to give its father during his miserable childhood.
"I know what it is," said the old woman sadly, "poor Carmen has too many
anxieties, you should see the poor thing when Juan is wandering about
the world!..."
During the winter, the season of rest when the torero was for the most
part at home, or only went into the country for the "trials" of young
bulls or for hunting parties, all went well. Carmen was happy, knowing
her husband ran no risks; she laughed at anything, ate, and her face was
bright with the hues of health. But as soon as the spring time came
round, and Juan left home to fight in the different Plazas in Spain, the
poor girl became pale and weak, and fell into a painful languor, her
eyes, dilated by terror, ready to shed tears on the slightest occasion.
"He has seventy-two corridas this year," said the intimates of the
house, speaking of the espada's engagements. "No one is so sought after
as he is."
Carmen smiled with a sorrowful face. Seventy-two afternoons of anguish,
in the chapel like a criminal condemned to death, longing for the
arrival of the telegram in the evening, and yet dreading to open it.
Seventy-two days of terror, of vague superstitions, thinking that one
word forgotten in a prayer might influence the fate of the absent one;
seventy-two days of pained surprise at living in a great house, seeing
the same people, and finding life go on in its usual way; as though
nothing extraordinary was going on in the world, hearing her husband's
nephews playing in the patio, and the flower sellers crying their wares
outside while down there far away, in unknown towns, her beloved Juan
was fighting those fierce beasts before thousands of eyes, and seeing
death lightly pass by his breast with every wave of the red rag that he
carried in his hand.
Ay! Those days of a corrida, those holidays, when the sky seemed bluer,
and the usually solitary street echoed beneath the holiday maker's
footsteps, when guitars tinkled, accompanied by hand clappings and songs
in the tavern at the corner!... Then Carmen, plainly dressed, with her
mantilla over her eyes, flying from those evil dreams, would leave her
house to take refuge in a church.
Her simple faith, which anxiety peopled with vague superstitions, made
her go from altar to altar, weighing in her mind the merits and miracles
of each image. Some days she would go to San Gil, the popular church
which had witnessed the happiest day of her life, to kneel before the
Virgin de la Macarena. By the light of the numerous tapers she ordered
to be lighted, she would gaze at the dark face of that statue with its
black eyes and long lashes, which many said so singularly resembled her
own. In her she trusted, she was not "the Lady of Hope" for nothing,
surely at that time she was protecting Juan with her divine power.
But suddenly uncertainty and fear crept through her beliefs, rending
them. The Virgin was only a woman, and women can do so little! Their
fate is to suffer and to weep, as she was weeping for her husband, as
that other had wept for her Son. She must confide in stronger powers, so
with the egoism of pain, she abandoned la Macarena without scruple, like
a useless friend, and went to the church of San Lorenzo in search of
"Our Father, Jesus of Great Power." The Man-God with His crown of
thorns, and His cross by His side, perspiring, and tearful, an image
that the sculptor Montañes had known how to make terrifying.
The dramatic sadness of the Nazarene, stumbling over the stones, borne
down by the weight of His cross, seemed to console the poor wife. The
Lord of Great Power! ... this vague but grandiose title tranquilised her.
If that God dressed in purple velvet with gold embroideries would only
listen to her sighs and prayers, repeated hurriedly, with dizzy
rapidity, so that the greatest possible number of words should be said
in the shortest possible time, she was sure that Juan would come safe
and sound out of the arena, where he was at that moment fighting. At
other times she would give money to a sacristan to light some wax
tapers and would spend hours watching the rosy reflection of the red
tongues on the image, fancying she saw on its varnished face in the
changing light and shadow, smiles of consolation, which augured
happiness.
The Lord of Great Power did not deceive her. When she returned to her
house the little blue paper arrived, which she opened with trembling
hands. "Nothing new." She could breathe again, and sleep, like the
criminal who is freed for the moment from the fear of instant death, but
in two or three days the torment of uncertainty, the terrible fear of
the unknown, would begin afresh.
In spite of the love Carmen professed for her husband, there were times
when her heart rose in rebellion. If she had only known what this life
was before her marriage!... Now and then, impelled by the community of
suffering she would go and see the wives of the men who composed Juan's
cuadrilla, as if those women could give her news.
The wife of El Nacional, who had a tavern in the same quarter, received
the chief's wife tranquilly, and seemed surprised at her fears. She was
used to the life, and her husband must be quite well as he sent no news.
Telegrams were dear, and a banderillero earned little enough. When the
newspaper sellers did not shout an accident, it meant that nothing
untoward had happened, and she went on attending to the affairs of her
tavern, as if anxiety could not penetrate the hard rind of her
susceptibilities.
Other times she would cross the bridge and penetrate into the suburb of
Triana, in search of the wife of Potaje the picador, a kind of gitana,
who lived in a hovel like a fowl house, surrounded by dirty copper
coloured brats, whom she ordered about and terrified by her stentorian
shouts. The visit of the chief's wife filled her with pride, but her
anxieties made her laugh. She ought not to be afraid, the men on foot
nearly always got clear of the bull, and the Señor Juan was very lucky
in throwing himself on the beast. Bulls killed few people, the terrible
things were the falls from horse-back. It was well known what was the
end of nearly all picadors after a life of horrible tosses: he who did
not end his life in an unforeseen and sudden accident, generally died
mad. No doubt poor Potaje would die in this way, he would have endured
all these hardships for a handful of duros, whereas others....
She did not conclude her sentence, but her eyes expressed a mute protest
against the injustice of fate, against those fine fellows who directly
they handled a sword, appropriated all the plaudits, the popularity, and
the money, running no more risk than their humble colleagues.
Little by little Carmen became accustomed to the existence. The cruel
waits on the days of a corrida, the visits to the saints, the
superstitions, doubts, were all accepted as forming part and parcel of
her life. Besides her husband's usual good luck, and the constant
conversation in the house on the chances of the fight, ended by
familiarizing her with the danger. And at last the bull came to be for
her a fairly good-natured and noble animal, who had come into the world
for the express purpose of enriching and giving fame to their matadors.
She had never been to a corrida of bulls. Since the afternoon when she
had seen her future husband at his first novillada, she had never been
near the Plaza. She felt she should not have the courage to see a
corrida, even though Gallardo were taking no part in it. She should
faint with terror seeing other men face the danger, dressed in the same
costume as Juan.
After they had been married three years, the espada was wounded in
Valencia. Carmen did not hear of it at once. The telegram came at the
usual hour, bearing the habitual "nothing new," and it was through the
kindness of Don José, who visited Carmen daily and performed clever
sleight of hand tricks to prevent her seeing the papers, that the news
was kept from her for over a week.
When through the indiscretion of some neighbours Carmen at last heard of
the accident, she wished at once to take the train to join her husband,
and nurse him, feeling sure he was neglected. But there was no need, the
espada arrived before she could leave, pale from loss of blood, and
obliged to keep one leg quiet for some time, but gay and jaunty in order
to reassure his family.
The house became at once a kind of sanctuary, all sorts of people passed
through the patio, in order to salute Gallardo "the first man in the
world," who, sitting in a cane arm-chair, with his leg on a footstool,
smoked quietly, as though his flesh had not been torn by a horrible
wound.
Doctor Ruiz, who had brought him back to Seville, declaring he would be
cured in a month, was astonished at the vigour of his constitution. The
facility with which toreros were cured was a mystery for him, in spite
of his long practice as a surgeon. The horn, filthy with blood and
excrement, very often broken at the ends by blows into small splinters,
broke the flesh, lacerated it, perforated it, so that it was at the same
time a deep penetrating wound, and a crushing bruise, but all the same
these awful wounds were cured far more easily than those of daily life.
"How it can be I know not--it is a mystery"--said the old surgeon, much
perplexed. "Either these lads have flesh like a dog, or the horn in
spite of its filth has some curative property unknown to us."
Shortly afterwards Gallardo recommenced fighting, his wound, in spite
of his enemies' predictions, having in no way abated his fighting
ardour.
After they had been married about four years, the espada gave his wife
and mother a great surprise. They were going to become landed
proprietors--proprietors on a large scale--with lands of which they
could not see the end, olive yards, mills, herds innumerable, an estate
as fine as that of the richest men in Seville.
Gallardo was like all toreros who only dream of being owners of the
soil, and to be horse and cattle breeders. Town property, stocks and
shares in no way tempt them, and they understand nothing whatever about
them. But bulls make them think of the broad plains, and horses remind
them of the country; besides, the necessity of constant movement and
exercise by hunting and walking during the winter months adds to their
desire to possess the soil.
According to Gallardo's ideas, no one could be rich unless he owned a
large farm, and immense herds of cattle. Ever since the years of his
poverty, when he had wandered on foot, through the cultivated lands and
pastures, he had always nourished the fervent desire of possessing
leagues and leagues of land, that should be his very own, and that
should be enclosed by strong palings from the trespass of other people.
Don José knew of this wish. He it was who ran Gallardo's affairs,
receiving the money due to him from the different managers, and keeping
accounts which he endeavoured in vain to explain to the matador.
"I don't understand that music," said Gallardo, rather pleased at his
own ignorance. "I only understand how to kill bulls. Do whatever you
like, Don José. I am quite confident that whatever you do will be for
the best."
And Don José, who never looked after his own affairs, leaving them to
his wife's rather ineffectual management, thought day and night of the
matador's fortune, investing the money at good interest, with the
keenness of a money-lender.
One day he came gaily to his protegé.
"I have got what you longed for--an estate as big as the world, and very
cheap--a splendid bargain. Next week we shall sign all the papers."
Gallardo enquired the name and situation of the domain.
"It is called La Rinconada."
His dearest wishes were fulfilled.
When Gallardo went with his wife and mother to take possession of the
Grange, he showed them the hay-loft where he had slept with his
companions in misery, the room where he had dined with the former owner,
the little Plaza where he had killed the yearling, thereby earning for
the first time the right to travel by train without being obliged to
hide himself under the seats.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] _i.e._ bull-fights, etc.
[49] The lovely gardens by the Guadalquiver at Seville.
[50] Little shoemaker.
[51] Toros corridas.
[52] Olla--stew.
[53] _i.e._ knew all about it.
[54] Pass in which the torero stands with his feet in line with the
bull's forefeet. When the animal is in the act of charging he turns it
by a pass of the cape either to right or left. It is considered a very
brilliant stroke.
[55] Another pass, when the cape is spread nearly flat on the ground,
and when the bull is in the act of charging it, it is drawn up suddenly
over his head.
[56] Bull-fighting festival.
[57] Brindis, dedication or pledge.
[58] Young bulls--up to about three years old.
[59] La verdad--full-grown bulls fought according to rules laid down.
[60] A soldier of fortune of the Middle Ages.
[61] Quitar la mona--expression used when a torero cuts off his pigtail
or chignon and retires into private life.
[62] Toro formal--a bull who fulfils all the conditions necessary for a
large bull-fight, age, size, breed, temper, etc.
[63] Central courtyard of a Spanish house--which is always a garden with
fountain--and arched round like a cloister.
[64] Plucking the turkey--an expression used of Andalusian lovers who
spend the night at a window spooning.
[65] Lit.--recover the rent--something akin to paying the footing.
[66] Uncle.