Blood and Sand. Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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СКАЧАТЬ off his ground, excited by the proximity of danger and the admiring acclamations of the crowd, which seemed to intoxicate him.

      Gallardo felt the wild beast's snorting close to him. Its breath moist with slaver fell on his face and right hand. Becoming familiar with the feeling he seemed to look on the brute as a good friend who was going to let himself be killed, to contribute to his glory.

      At last the bull remained quiet for a few instants as if tired of the game, looking with eyes full of sombre reflexion at this man and his red cloth, suspecting in his limited brain the existence of some stratagem that, by attack after attack, would lead him to his death.

      Gallardo felt the great heart-beat of his finest feats. Now then! He caught the muleta with a circular sweep of his left hand, rolling it round the stick, and raised his right to the height of his eyes, standing with the sword bending down towards the nape of the brute's neck. A tumult of surprised protest broke from the crowd: "Don't strike!" … shouted thousands of voices: "No! … No!" …

      It was too soon. The bull was not well placed, it would charge and catch him. He was acting outside all rules of the art. But what did rules or life itself signify to that reckless man! …

      Suddenly he threw himself forward with his sword at the same instant that the beast fell upon him. The encounter was brutal, savage. For an instant man and beast formed one confused mass, and thus advanced a few paces. No one could see who was the conqueror; the man with one arm and part of his body between the two horns; or the brute lowering his head and fighting to catch on those horns the brilliantly coloured golden puppet which seemed to be slipping away from him.

      At last the group separated. The muleta remained on the ground like a rag, and the fighter, his hands empty, emerged staggering from the impetus of the shock, till some distance away he recovered his equilibrium. His clothes were disordered, and the cravat floating outside the waistcoat was gashed and torn by the bull's horns.

      The bull continued its rush with the impetus of the first charge. On its broad neck, the red pommel of the sword, buried up to the hilt scarcely could be seen. Suddenly it stopped short in its career, rolling with a painful curtseying motion; then folded its fore-legs, bent its head till its bellowing muzzle touched the sand, and finally subsided in convulsions of agony.

      It seemed as though the whole Plaza were falling down, as if all its bricks were rattling against one another; as if the crowd was going to fly in panic, when all rose suddenly to their feet, pale, trembling, gesticulating, waving their arms. Dead! What a sword thrust! … They had all thought for a second, that the matador was impaled on the bull's horns, all thought they would assuredly see him fall bleeding on the sand, but now they saw him, standing there, still giddy from the shock, but smiling! … The surprise and astonishment of it all increased their enthusiasm.

      "Oh! the brute!" … they roared from the benches, not finding any better word with which to express their unbounded astonishment. … "What a savage!" …

      Hats flew into the arena. Overwhelming rounds of applause ran like a torrent of hail from bench to bench, as the matador advanced through the arena, following the circle of the barriers, till he arrived opposite the presidential chair.

      Then as Gallardo opened his arms to salute the president, the thundering ovation redoubled, all shouted claiming the honours of the "maestria"[42] for the matador. "He ought to be given the ear."[43] "Never was the honour better deserved." "Sword-thrusts like that are seldom seen," and the enthusiasm waxed even greater when one of the attendants of the Plaza presented him with a dark, hairy, bloody triangle; it was the tip of one of the beast's ears.

      The third bull was already in the circus, and still the ovation to Gallardo continued, as if the audience had not recovered from its astonishment, and nothing that could possibly happen during the rest of the corrida could be of the slightest interest.

      The other toreros, pale with professional jealousy, exerted themselves to attract the attention of the public, but the applause they gained sounded weak and timid after the outburst that had preceded it. The public seemed exhausted by their former excess of enthusiasm, and only paid absent-minded attention to the fresh events unfolding themselves in the arena.

      Soon violent disputes arose between the rows of seats.

      The supporters of the other matadors who by this time had become calm, and had recovered from the wave of enthusiasm which had mastered them in common with everyone else, began to justify their former spontaneous outburst by criticising Gallardo.

      "Very brave," "very daring," "suicidal," but that was not art. On the other hand the worshippers of the idol who were even more vehement and brutal, and who admired his audacity from innate sympathy, were rabid with the rage of zealots who hear doubts cast on the miracles of their own particular saint.

      Various minor incidents which caused commotion amidst the benches also distracted the attention of the audience. Suddenly there was a commotion in some section of the amphitheatre. Everybody stood up, turning their backs on the arena, and arms and sticks were flourished above the sea of heads. The rest of the audience forgot the arena, and concentrated their attention on the fracas, and the large numbers painted on the walls of the inside barrier, which distinguished the blocks of seats.

      "A fight in No. 3!" they yelled joyfully. "Now there's a row in No. 5!"

      Finally the whole audience caught the contagion, got excited, and stood up, each trying to look over his neighbour's head, but all they were able to see was the slow ascent of the police, who pushed a way for themselves from bench to bench, and finally reached the group where the disturbance was going on.

      "Sit down!" … shouted the more peaceable, who were prevented from seeing the arena, where the toreros were continuing their work.

      The general tumult was gradually calmed and the rows of heads round the circular line of benches resumed their previous regularity during the progress of the corrida. But the audience seemed to have its nerves over-strained, and gave vent to its feelings, by uncalled-for animosity, or contemptuous silence towards certain of the fighters.

      The crowd, exhausted by its previous outburst of emotion, regarded all that followed as insipid, and so diverted its boredom by eating and drinking. The refreshment sellers of the Plaza walked round between the barriers, throwing up the articles asked for with marvellous dexterity. Oranges flew like golden balls up to the very highest benches, in a straight line from the hands of the seller to that of the buyer, as if drawn by a thread. Bottles of aerated drinks were opened, and the golden wine of Andalusia shone in the glasses.

      Soon a current of curiosity ran round the seats. Fuentes was going to fix banderillas in his bull, and everyone expected something extraordinarily dexterous and graceful. He advanced alone into the midst of the Plaza, with the banderillas in his hand, quiet and self-possessed, moving slowly, as if he were beginning some game. The bull followed his movements with anxious eyes, astonished to see this man alone in front of him, after the previous hurly-burly of outspread cloaks, cruel pikes sticking into his neck, and horses which placed themselves in front of his horns, as if offering themselves to his attack.

      The man hypnotised the beast, approaching so close as even to touch his pole with the banderillas. Then with short tripping steps he ran away, pursued by the bull, which followed him as though fascinated, to the opposite end of the Plaza. The animal seemed cowed by the fighter, and obeyed his every movement, until at last, thinking the game had lasted long enough, the man opened his arms with a dart in either hand, drew up his graceful slim figure on tip-toe, and advancing towards the bull with majestic СКАЧАТЬ