In the middle of spring the temperature suddenly fell, with the violent
extremes of the uncertain and fickle Madrid climate.
It was very cold. A grey sky poured down torrents of rain, mingled with
flakes of snow, and people who were already dressed in their light
clothes, opened boxes and cupboards in search of cloaks and wraps.
For two weeks there had been no function in the Plaza de Toros. The
Sunday corrida had been fixed for the first weekday on which it should
be fine. The manager, the employés of the Plaza and the innumerable
amateurs whom this enforced inaction put out of temper, watched the sky
with the anxiety of peasants who are fearing for their harvest. A slight
rent in the sky or the appearance of a few stars as they left their
cafés at midnight raised their spirits.
"The weather is lifting.... We shall have a corrida the day after
to-morrow."
But the clouds rolled together again, and the leaden sky continued to
pour down its torrents. The aficionados were furious with the weather,
which seemed to have set itself against the national sport. Horrid
climate! which made even corridas impossible.
Gallardo had, therefore, a fortnight of enforced rest. His cuadrilla
complained bitterly of the inaction. In any other town in Spain the men
would have resigned themselves to the detention, because the espada paid
all their hotel expenses in every place but Madrid. It was a bad custom
initiated by former maestros living near the capital. It was supposed
that the proper domicile of every real torero was in la Corte,[102] and
the poor peons and picadors, who lodged in a boarding-house kept by the
widow of a banderillero, eked out their existence by all sorts of petty
economies, smoking but little, and standing outside the café doors. They
thought of their families with the avarice of men who only receive a few
coins in exchange for their blood. By the time these two corridas had
come off they would already have devoured their earnings in
anticipation.
The espada was equally ill-humoured in the solitude of his hotel, not on
account of the weather, but on account of his ill luck.
He had fought his first corrida in Madrid with deplorable results, and
the public were quite different to him. He still had many partizans of
unquenchable faith, who rose in arms for his defence, but even those
enthusiasts, so noisy and aggressive the previous year, now showed a
certain reserve, and when they found occasion to applaud him they did so
timidly. On the other hand, his enemies and the great mass of the
populace always anxious for danger and death, how unjust they were in
their judgments!... How ready to insult him!... What was tolerated in
other matadors seemed vetoed for him.
They had seen him full of courage, throwing himself blindly into danger,
and so they wished him to be always, till death should cut short his
career. He had played almost suicidally with fate, when he was anxious
to make a name for himself, and now people could not reconcile
themselves to his prudence. Insults were always hurled at any attempt at
self preservation. As certainly as he spread the muleta at a certain
distance from the bull, so certainly the protests broke forth. He did
not throw himself on the bull! He was afraid! And it was sufficient for
him to throw himself one step back for the people to greet this
precaution with filthy insults.
The news of what had happened in Seville at the Easter corrida seemed to
have circulated throughout Spain. His enemies were taking their revenge
for long years of envy and jealousy. His professional companions whom he
had often forced into danger from a feeling of emulation now babbled
with hypocritical expressions of pity about Gallardo's decadence. His
courage had given out! His last cogida had made him over prudent. And
the audience, influenced by these rumours, now fixed their eyes on the
torero as soon as he entered the Plaza, predisposed to find anything he
did bad, just as previously they had applauded even his faults.
The fickleness so characteristic of mobs had much to say to this change
of opinion. The people were tired of watching Gallardo's courage, and
now they enjoyed watching his fear--or his prudence--as if it made
themselves the braver.
The public never thought he was close enough to his bull. He must throw
himself better on it! And when he, overcoming by sheer strength of will
that nervousness which longed to fly from danger, had succeeded in
killing a bull as in former days, the ovation was neither so prolonged
nor so vehement. He seemed to have broken the current of enthusiasm
which had formerly existed between himself and the populace. His scanty
triumphs only served to make the people worry him with lectures and
advice. That was the way to kill! You ought always to kill like that!
Great cheat!
His faithful partizans recognized his failures, but they excused them,
speaking of the former exploits performed by the espada on his lucky
afternoons.
"He is somewhat over careful," they said. "He seems tired. But when he
wishes!"...
Ay! but Gallardo always wished. Why could he not do well and gain the
applause of the populace? But his successes, that the aficionados
thought a caprice of his will, were really the work of chance or of a
happy conjunction of circumstances, of that heart-throb of the olden
days which now he so very seldom felt.
In many of the provincial Plazas he had been whistled, the people on the
sunny side insulted him by the tooting of horns and the ringing of cow
bells whenever he delayed in killing a bull, by giving it half-hearted
estocades which did not make it bend its knees.
In Madrid the people waited for him "with their claws," as he said. As
soon as the spectators of the first corrida saw him pass the bull with
the muleta, and enter to kill, the row broke out. That lad from Seville
had been changed! That was not Gallardo; it was some one else. He
shortened his arm, he turned away his face; he ran with the quickness of
a squirrel, putting himself out of reach of the bull's horns, without
the calmness to stand quietly and wait for him. They noted a deplorable
loss of courage and strength.
That corrida was a fiasco for Gallardo, and in the evening assemblies of
the aficionados the affair was much canvassed. The old people who
thought everything in the present day was bad spoke of the cowardice of
modern toreros. They presented themselves with mad daring, but as soon
as they felt the touch of a horn on their flesh ... they were done for!
Gallardo, obliged to rest in consequence of the bad weather, waited
impatiently for the second corrida, with the fullest intention of
performing great exploits. He was much pained at the wound inflicted on
his amour-propre by the ridicule of his enemies; if he returned to the
provinces with the bad reputation of a fiasco in Madrid he was a lost
man. He would master his nervousness, vanquish that dread which made him
shrink and fancy the bulls larger and more formidable. He considered his
strength quite equal to accomplish the same deeds as before. It was true
there still remained a slight weakness in his arm and in his leg, but
that would soon pass off.
His manager suggested his accepting a very advantageous contract for
certain Plazas in America, but he refused. No, he could not cross the
seas at present. He must first show Spain that he was the same espada as
heretofore. Afterwards he would consider the propriety of undertaking
that journey.
With the anxiety of a popular man who feels his prestige broken,
Gallardo frequented the places where all the aficionados assembled. He
went often to the Café Ingles, which the partisans of the Andalusian
toreros frequented, thinking his presence would silence all unpleasant
remarks. He himself, modest and smiling, began the conversation, with a
humility that disarmed even the most irreconcilable.
"It is quite certain I did not do well, I quite recognize it. But you
will see at the next corrida, when the weather clears.... I will do what
I can."
He did not dare to enter certain cafés in the Puerta del Sol, where
aficionados of a lower class assembled. They were thorough-going
Madrileños, inimical to Andalusian bull-fighting, and resentful that all
the matadors came from Seville and Cordoba, while the capital seemed
unable to produce a glorious representative. The remembrance of
Frascuelo, whom they considered a son of Madrid, lived everlastingly in
those assemblies. Many of them had not been to the Plaza for years, not
in fact since the retirement of "El Negro." Why should they? They were
quite content to read the reports in the papers, being convinced that
since Frascuelo's death there were neither bulls nor toreros, Andalusian
lads and nothing more, dancers who made grimaces with their capes and
their bodies, but did not know how to stand and "receive" a bull with
dignity.
Now and again a slight breath of hope revived them. Madrid was soon
going to have its own great matador. They had discovered in the suburbs
a "novillero," who had already done good work in the Plazas of Vallecas
and Tetuan, and had fought in the Madrid Plaza at the cheap Sunday
afternoon corridas.
His name was becoming popular. In all the barbers' shops the greatest
triumphs were predicted for him, but somehow or other those prophecies
were never fulfilled, either the aspirant fell a victim to a mortal
"cogida" or dropped into being one of the loafers in the Plaza del Sol,
who aired their pigtails while they waited for imaginary contracts, and
the aficionados were free to turn their attention to other rising stars.
Gallardo did not dare to approach the tauromachic demagogy, whom he knew
had always hated him and were rejoicing at his decadence. Most of them
would not go to see him in the circus, nor admire any torero of the
present day. Their expected Messiah must arrive before they returned to
the Plaza.
In order to distract his mind Gallardo would wander in the evenings
through the Puerta del Sol, and allow himself to be accosted by those
bull-fighting vagabonds who assembled there, boasting of their exploits;
they were all smart, well dressed, with a marvellous display of
imitation jewellery. They all saluted him respectfully as "Maestro" or
"Seño Juan"; some were honest fellows enough, who hoped to make a name
for themselves, and maintain their families by something more than
workmen's wages, others were less scrupulous, but all ended by borrowing
a few pesetas from him.
In addition to the amusement offered by those would-be toreros, he was
much diverted by the importunity of an admirer who pestered him with his
projects. This man was a tavern-keeper at Las Ventas, a rough Galician
of powerful build, short-necked and high-coloured, who had made a little
fortune in his shop where soldiers and servants went to dance on
Sundays.
He had only one son, small of stature, and feeble in constitution, whom
his father destined to be one of the great lights of tauromachia. The
tavern-keeper, a great admirer of Gallardo and of all celebrated
espadas, had quite made up his mind to this.
"The lad is worth something," he said. "You know, Señor Juan, that I
understand something about these matters, and I am quite willing to
spend a bit of money to give him a profession ... but he wants a
'padrino'[103] if he is to be pushed, and there could be no one better
than yourself. If you would only arrange a novillada in which the
youngster could kill! Crowds of people would go, and I would bear all
the expenses."
This readiness to "bear all the expenses" to help the lad on in his
career had already caused the tavern-keeper heavy losses. But he still
persisted, being supported by that commercial spirit which made him
overlook the failures, in the hope of the enormous gains his son would
make when he was a full-fledged matador.
The poor boy, who in his early years had shown a passion for
bull-fighting, like most boys of his class, now found himself a prisoner
to his father's tyrannical will. The latter had thoroughly believed in
his vocation, thinking the boy's want of dash, laziness; and his fear,
want of enterprise. A cloud of parasites, low class amateurs, obscure
toreros whose only remembrances of the past were their pigtails, who
drank gratuitously at the tavern-keeper's expense, and begged small
loans in return for their advice, formed a kind of deliberative
assembly, whose object was to make known to the world this bull-fighting
star, now lying hidden in Las Ventas.
The tavern-keeper, without consulting his son, had organized corridas in
Tetuan and Vallecas, always "bearing all the expenses." These outlying
Plazas were open to all those who wished to be gored or trampled by
bulls, under the eyes of a few hundred spectators. But those amusements
were not to be had for nothing. To enjoy the pleasure of being rolled
over in the sand, to have his breeches torn to rags, and his body
covered with blood and dirt, it was necessary to pay for all the seats
in the Plaza, the diestro or his representative undertaking to
distribute the tickets.
The enthusiastic father filled all the places with his friends,
distributing the entrances amongst comrades of the guild, or poor
amateurs of the sport. Moreover, he paid those who formed his son's
cuadrilla lavishly, all vagabonds, peons and banderilleros, recruited
from among the loafers in the Puerta del Sol, who fought in their
everyday clothes, whereas the youngster was resplendent in his gala
costume. Anything for the lad's career!
"He has a new gala dress made by the best tailor, who dresses Gallardo
and the other matadors. Seven thousand reals it cost me. I think he
ought to be fine in that!... But I would spend my last peseta to get him
on. Ah! if others had a father like me!..."
The tavern-keeper stood between the barriers during the corrida,
encouraging the espada by his presence, and by the flourishing of a big
stick. Whenever the youngster came to rest by the wall the fat red face
of his father and the big knob of that terrible stick would appear like
terrifying phantoms.
"Do you think I am spending my money for this? Why are you here giving
yourself airs and graces like a young lady? Have some dash and
enterprise, rascal. Go out into the middle and distinguish yourself. Ay!
if I were only your age and not so stout...."
When the poor lad stood opposite the novillo, the muleta and rapier in
his hands, with pale face and trembling legs, his father followed all
his evolutions from behind the barrier. He was always before the boy's
eyes like a threatening master, ready to chastise the slightest fault in
the lesson.
What the poor diestro, dressed in his suit of gold and red silk, most
feared, was his return home on the evenings when his father was frowning
and dissatisfied.
He would enter the tavern wrapping himself in his rich and glittering
cape, to hide the rags of shirt protruding through rents in his
breeches, all his bones aching with tosses the young bulls had given
him. His mother, a rough, coarse-faced woman, upset by her afternoon's
anxious wait, would run to meet him open armed.
"Here's this coward!" roared the tavern-keeper. "He is worse than a
'maleta.' And it is for this that I have spent money!"
The terrible stick was raised furiously, and the golden suited lad, who
just before had murdered two poor little bulls, endeavoured to run away,
shielding his face with his arm, while his mother interposed between the
two.
"Don't you see he is wounded?"
"Wounded!" exclaimed the father bitterly, regretting it was not the
case. "That is for 'true' toreros. Put a few stitches in his rags, and
see they are washed.... Just see how they have served the cheat!"
But in a few days the tavern-keeper had recovered his equanimity.
Anybody might have a bad day. He had seen famous matadors in just as bad
case before the public as his boy. And he forthwith arranged fresh
corridas in Toledo and Guadalajara, he, as before, "paying all the
expenses."
His novillada in the Madrid Plaza was, according to the tavern-keeper,
one of the most splendid on record. The espada, by a lucky accident, had
killed two young bulls moderately well, and the public, who for the most
part had entered free, applauded the tavern-keeper's son.
As he came out of the Plaza his father appeared at the head of a noisy
troup of loafers, whom he had collected from all round the
neighbourhood. The tavern-keeper was an honest man in his dealings, and
he had promised to pay them fifty centimes a head if they would shout
"Vive El Manitas"! till they were hoarse, and carry the glorious
novillero on their shoulders as soon as he came out of the circus.
"El Manitas," still trembling from his recent perils, found himself
surrounded, seized and lifted on to the shoulders of the noisy loafers,
and carried in triumph from the Plaza to Las Ventas, through the Calle
de Alcala, followed by the inquisitive looks of the people on the
tramways, which remorselessly cut through the glorious manifestation.
The father walked along with his stick under his arm, pretending to have
nothing to do with it, but whenever the shouting slackened he forgot
himself and ran to the head of the crowd, like a man who does not think
he is getting his money's worth, himself giving the signal, "Viva
Manitas," when the ovation would recommence with tremendous shouting.
Many months had passed, and the tavern-keeper was still excited as he
remembered the affair.
"They brought him back to the house on their shoulders, Señor Juan, just
the same as they have often carried you; forgive me the comparison. You
will see if the youngster is not worth something.... He only wants a
push, for you to give him a helping hand."...
So Gallardo, to free himself, answered, promising vaguely; possibly he
might manage to direct the novillada, but they could settle that later
on, there was still plenty of time before winter.
One evening at dusk, as the torero was entering the Calle de Alcala
through the Puerta del Sol he gave a start of surprise. A fair-haired
lady was getting out of a carriage at the door of the Hotel de Paris....
Doña Sol! A man who looked like a foreigner gave her his hand to
descend, and after speaking a few words walked away, while she entered
the hotel.
It was Doña Sol. The torero could have no doubt on that point; neither
could he have any doubt as to the relations subsisting between her and
the stranger. So she had looked at him, so she had smiled on him in
those happy days when they rode together over the lonely country in the
crimson light of the setting sun. Curse him!
He spent an uncomfortable evening with some friends, and afterwards
slept badly; his dreams reproducing many scenes of the past. When he
awoke the dull grey light was coming in through the window, rain mingled
with snow was pouring down in torrents, everything looked black, the
sky, the opposite walls, the muddy pavement, the umbrellas, even the
smart carriages rattling along.
Eleven o'clock. Suppose he went to see Doña Sol? Why not! The night
before he had angrily rejected this thought. It would be lowering
himself. She had gone away without any explanation, and afterwards,
knowing him to be in danger of death, she had scarcely enquired after
him. Only a telegram just at first, not even a short letter, not even a
line. She who was so fond of writing to her friends. No, he would not go
to see her.
But his strength of will seemed to have evaporated during the night. Why
not? he asked himself once again. He must see her again. Among all the
women he had known she stood first, attracting him with a strength quite
different from anything he felt for the others. Ay! how much he had felt
that sudden separation!
His cruel "cogida" in the Plaza of Seville had cut short his amorous
pique. Afterwards his illness, and his tender approximation to Carmen
during his convalescence, had resigned him to his misfortune; but to
forget her ... that--never. He had done his best to forget the past, but
any slight circumstance, a lady on horseback galloping past--a
fair-haired Englishwoman in the street, the constant intercourse with
all those young men who were her relations, everything recalled the
image of Doña Sol! Ay! that woman!... Never should he meet her like
again. Losing her, Gallardo seemed to have gone back in his life, he was
no longer the same. He even attributed to her desertion his fiascos in
his art. When he had her he was braver, but when the fair-haired gachi
left him his ill luck began. He firmly believed that if she returned his
glorious days would also come back. His superstitious heart believed
this most firmly.
Possibly his longing to see her was a happy inspiration, like those
heart-throbs which had so often carried him on to glory in the circus.
Again, why not? Possibly Doña Sol seeing him again after a long absence
... who could tell!... The first time they had seen each other alone
together it had been so.
And so Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, took his way towards the
Hotel de Paris, situated at a short distance from his own.
He had to wait nearly half an hour on a divan in the hall, under the
curious eyes of the hotel employés and guests, who turned to look at him
as they heard his name.
Finally a servant showed him into the lift, and took him up to a small
sitting-room on the first floor, from whose windows he could see all the
restless life of the Puerta del Sol.
At last a little door opened and Doña Sol appeared amid a rustling of
silks, and the delicate perfume which seemed to belong to her fresh pink
skin; radiant in the beautiful summer time of her life.
Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, looking her up and down as one who
had not forgotten the smallest detail. She was just the same as in
Seville!... No, even more beautiful in his eyes, with the added
temptation of her long absence.
She was dressed in much the same elegant negligé, with the same strange
jewels as on the night when he had first seen her, with gold embroidered
papouches on her pretty feet. She stretched out her hand with cold
amiability.
"How are you, Gallardo?... I knew you were in Madrid, for I had seen
you."
She no longer used the familiar "tu," to which he had responded with the
respectful address of a lover of inferior class. That "usted," which
seemed to make them equals, drove the torero to despair. He had wished
to be as a servant raised by love to the arms of the great lady, and now
he found himself treated with the cold but courteous consideration of an
ordinary friend.
She explained that she had seen Gallardo, having been at the only
corrida given in Madrid. She had been there with a foreign gentleman,
who wished to know Spanish things: a friend who was accompanying her on
her journey, but who was living at another hotel.
Gallardo replied by a nod. He knew that foreigner--he had seen him with
her.
There was a long silence between the two, neither knowing what to say.
Doña Sol was the first to break it.
She thought the torero looking very well: she remembered vaguely having
heard something about an accident, indeed she was almost sure that she
had sent a telegram to enquire. But, really, with the life she led, with
constant changes of country and new friendships, her memory was in such
a state of confusion!... She thought he looked just the same as ever,
and at the corrida he had seemed proud and strong, although rather
unfortunate. But she did not understand much about bulls.
"That 'cogida' was not really much?"
Gallardo felt irritated at the indifferent tone in which that woman made
the enquiry. And he! all the time he was hovering between life and death
he had thought only of her!... With a roughness born of indignation he
told her about his "cogida" and his long convalescence, which had lasted
the whole winter.
She listened with feigned interest, while her eyes betrayed utter
indifference. What did the misfortune of that bull-fighter signify to
her.... They were accidents of his profession, and as such could be
interesting to himself only.
As Gallardo spoke of his convalescence at the Grange, his memory
recalled the image of the man who had seen Doña Sol and himself there
together.
"And Plumitas? Do you remember the poor fellow? They killed him. I do
not know if you heard of it."
Doña Sol also remembered this vaguely. She had probably read about it in
one of the Parisian papers, which spoke of the bandit as a most
interesting type of picturesque Spain.
"A poor man," said Doña Sol indifferently. "I scarcely remember him
except as a rough uninteresting peasant. From a distance one judges
things at their true value. What I do remember is the day on which he
breakfasted with us at the farm."
Gallardo also remembered that day. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion he
took a flower offered by Doña Sol ... because she had given the bandit a
flower as she took leave of him. Did she not remember?...
Doña Sol's eyes expressed absolute wonder.
"Are you quite sure?" she asked. "Is that really so? I swear to you I
remember nothing about it.... Ay! that sunny land! Ay! the intoxication
of the picturesque! Ay! the follies they make one commit!..."
Her exclamations betrayed a kind of repentance, but she burst out
laughing.
"Very possibly that poor peasant kept that flower till his last moment.
Don't you think so, Gallardo? Don't say 'No.' Probably no one had ever
given him a flower in all his life.... It is quite possible that that
withered flower may have been found on his body, a mysterious
remembrance that no one could explain.... Did you know nothing of this,
Gallardo? Did the papers say nothing?... Be silent, don't say 'No'; do
not dispel my illusions. So it ought to be--I wish it to be so. Poor
Plumitas! How interesting! And I who had forgotten all about the
flower!... I must tell that to my friend, who is thinking of writing a
book about Spanish things."
The remembrance of that friend, who for the second time in a few moments
came up in the conversation, saddened the torero.
He looked fixedly for some time at the beautiful woman, with his
melancholy Moorish eyes, which seemed to beg for pity.
"Doña Sol!... Doña Sol!" murmured he in despairing accents, as if
wishing to reproach her with her cruelty.
"What is the matter, my friend?" she asked smiling, "what is happening
to you?"
Gallardo sat with his head bent, half intimidated by the ironical flash
in those clear eyes, shimmering like gold dust.
Suddenly he sat up like one who has taken a resolution.
"Where have you been all this time, Doña Sol?"
"All over the world," she answered simply. "I am a bird of passage. In
numberless towns of which you would not even know the names."
"And that foreigner who accompanies you is ... is?"...
"Is a friend," she answered coldly. "A friend who has been kind enough
to accompany me, taking advantage of the opportunity to know Spain; a
clever man who bears an illustrious name. From here we shall go to
Andalusia, when he has done seeing the museums. What more do you wish to
know?"
This question, so haughtily asked, showed her imperious will to keep the
torero at a distance, and to re-establish social distinctions between
them. Gallardo felt disconcerted.
"Doña Sol," he moaned ingenuously. "What you have done to me is
unpardonable. You have acted very badly towards me, very badly
indeed.... Why did you fly without saying a single word?"
"Don't vex yourself like that, Gallardo. What I did was a very good
thing for you. Do you not even yet know me well enough? Could one not
get tired of that time?... If I were a man I would fly from women of my
character. It is suicidal for a man to fall in love with me."
"But why did you leave?" persisted Gallardo.
"Because I was bored.... Do I speak clearly?... And when a person is
bored, I think they have every right to escape in search of fresh
distraction. But I am bored to death everywhere; pity me."
"But I love you with all my heart!" exclaimed the torero with a dramatic
earnestness which in another man would have made him laugh.
"I love you with all my heart!" repeated Doña Sol, mimicking his voice
and gesture. "And what then? Ay! these egotistical men that are
applauded by every one, and who think that everything was created for
them!... 'I love you with all my heart,' and that is sufficient reason
for you to love me in return.... But no, Señor. I do not love you,
Gallardo. You are a friend and nothing more. All the rest, all that down
in Seville, was a dream, a mad caprice, which I hardly remember, and
which you ought to forget."
The torero got up, going towards her with outstretched arms. In his
ignorance he knew not what to say, guessing that his halting words would
be quite inefficacious in convincing such a woman. He trusted in action,
with the impulsive vehemence of his hopes and his desires, he intended
to seize that woman, to draw her to him, and dispel with his warm
embrace the coldness which separated them.
But she, with a simple turn of her right hand, pushed away the torero's
arms. A flash of pride and anger shone in her eyes, and she drew herself
up aggressively, as if she had been insulted.
"Be quiet, Gallardo!... If you go on like this you will no longer be my
friend, and I shall have you turned out of the house."
The torero stood humiliated and ashamed; some time passed in silence,
until at last Doña Sol seemed to pity him.
"Do not be a child," she said. "What is the use of remembering what is
no longer possible. Why think of me? You have your wife, who I am told
is both pretty and good, a kind companion. If not her, then others.
There are plenty of girls down in Seville who would think it happiness
to be loved by Gallardo. My love is ended. As a famous man accustomed to
success your pride is hurt; but it is so; mine is ended. You are a
friend and nothing more. I am quite different. I am bored, and I never
retrace my steps. Illusions only last with me a short time, and pass,
leaving no trace. I am to be pitied, believe me."
She looked at the torero with commiserating eyes, as if she suddenly saw
all his defects and roughness.
"I think things that you could not understand," she went on. "You seem
to me different. The Gallardo in Seville was not the same as the one
here. Are you the same?... I cannot doubt it, but to me you are
different.... How can this be explained?..."
She looked through the window at the dull rainy sky, at the wet Plaza,
at the flakes of snow, and then she turned her eyes on the espada,
looking with astonishment at the long lock of hair plastered on his
head, at his clothes, his hat, at all the details which betrayed his
profession, which contrasted so strongly with his smart and modern
dress.
To Doña Sol the torero seemed out of his element. Down in Seville
Gallardo was a hero, the spontaneous product of a cattle-breeding
country; here he seemed like an actor. How had she been able for many
months to feel love for that rough, coarse man. Ay! the surrounding
atmosphere! To what follies it drove one!
She remembered the danger in which she found herself, so nearly
perishing beneath the bull's horns; she thought of that breakfast with
the bandit, to whom she had listened stupefied with admiration, ending
by giving him a flower. What follies! And how far off it all now seemed!
Of that past nothing remained but that man, standing motionless before
her, with his imploring eyes, and his childish desire to revive those
days.... Poor man! As if follies could be repeated when one's thoughts
were cold and the illusion wanting. The blind enchantment of life!
"It is all over," said the lady. "We must forget the past, for when we
see it a second time it does not present itself in the same colours.
What would I give to have my former eyes?... When I returned to Spain it
seemed to me changed. You also are different from what I knew you. It
even seemed to me, seeing you in the Plaza, that you were less daring
... that the people were less enthusiastic."
She said this quite simply, without a trace of malice, but Gallardo
thought there was mocking in her voice, and bent his head, while his
cheeks coloured.
Curse it! All his professional anxieties arose again in his mind. All
the evil which was happening to him was because he did not now throw
himself on the bulls. That is what she so clearly said, she saw him "as
if he were another." If he could only be the Gallardo of former days,
perhaps she would receive him better. Women only love brave man.
But he was mistaken, taking what was a caprice dead for ever, to be a
momentary straying, that he could recall by strength and prowess.
Doña Sol got up. The visit had been a long one, and the torero showed no
disposition to leave, content with being near her, and trusting to some
lucky chance to bring them together again.
Gallardo was obliged to imitate her. She excused herself under pretext
of going out, she was expecting her friend, and they were going
together to the Museum of the Prado.
Then she invited him to breakfast another day, an unceremonious
breakfast in her rooms. Her friend would come. No doubt he would be
delighted to meet a torero; he scarcely spoke any Spanish, but all the
same he would be pleased to know Gallardo.
The espada pressed her hand, murmuring some incoherent words, and left
the room. Anger dimmed his sight, and his ears were buzzing.
So she dismissed him--coldly, like an importunate friend! Could that
woman be the same as the one in Seville!... And she invited him to
breakfast with her friend, so that the man could amuse himself by
examining him closely like a rare insect!...
Curse her!... He would prove himself a man.... It was over. He would
never see her again.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] Madrid is called--la Corte--the Court.
[103] Godfather; patron.