Blood and Sand. Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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СКАЧАТЬ infinite care he combed and plaited the long lock which adorned his master's occiput; and then, interrupting the operation, fastened it on the top of his head with two hairpins, leaving its final dressing for a later stage. Next he must attend to the feet, and he drew off the fighter's socks, leaving him only his vest and spun-silk drawers.

      Gallardo's powerful muscles stood out beneath these clothes in superb swellings. A hollow in one thigh betrayed a place where the flesh had disappeared owing to a gash from a horn. The swarthy skin of his arms was marked with white wheals, the scars of ancient wounds. His dark hairless chest was crossed by two irregular purple lines, record also of bloody feats. On one of his heels the flesh was of a violet colour, with a round depression which looked as if it had been the mould for a coin. All this fighting machine exhaled an odour of clean and healthy flesh blended with that of women's pungent scents.

      Garabato, with an armful of cotton wool and white bandages, knelt at his master's feet.

      "Just like the ancient gladiators!" said Dr. Ruiz, interrupting his conversation with the Bilboan, "See! You have become a Roman, Juan."

      "Age, Doctor!" replied the matador, with a tinge of melancholy, "We are all getting older. When I fought both bulls and hunger at the same time I did not want all this. I had feet of iron in the Capeas."

      Garabato placed small tufts of cotton wool between his master's toes and covered the soles and the upper part of his feet with a thin layer of it; then, pulling out the bandages, he rolled them round in tight spirals, like the wrappings of an ancient mummy. To fix them firmly he drew one of the threaded needles from his sleeve and carefully and neatly sewed up their ends.

      Gallardo stamped on the ground with his bandaged feet which seemed to him firmer in their soft wrappings. In the bandages he felt them both strong and agile. The servant then drew on the long stockings which came halfway up the thigh, thick and flexible like gaiters. This was the only protection for the legs under the silk of the fighting dress.

      "Be careful of wrinkles! See, Garabato, I don't want to wear sacks," and standing before the looking-glass, endeavouring to see both back and front, he bent down and passed his hands over his legs smoothing out the wrinkles for himself.

      Over these white stockings Garabato drew others of pink silk which alone remained visible when the torero was fully dressed, and then Gallardo put his feet into the pumps which he chose from amongst several pairs which Garabato had laid out on a box—all quite new and with white soles.

      Then began the real task of the dressing. Holding them by the upper part, the servant handed him the fighting knee-breeches made of tobacco-coloured silk, with heavy gold embroidery up the seams. Gallardo slipped them on, and the thick cords, ending in gold tassels, which drew in the lower ends, hung down over his feet. These cords which gather the breeches below the knee, constricting the leg to give it artificial strength, are called "los machos."

      Gallardo swelled out the muscles of his legs and ordered his servant to tighten the cords without fear. This was one of the most important operations as a matador's "machos" must be well tightened and Garabato, with nimble dexterity soon had the cords wound round and tucked away out of sight underneath the ends of the breeches, with the tassels hanging down.

      The master then drew on the fine lawn shirt held out by his servant, the front covered with zigzag crimpings, and as delicate and clear as a woman's garment. After he had fastened it Garabato knotted the long cravat that hung down dividing the chest with its red line till it lost itself in the waistband of the drawers. Now remained the most complicated article of clothing, the waist-sash—a long strip of silk over four yards long which seemed to take up the whole room, and which Garabato handled with the mastery of long experience.

      The espada went and stood near his friends at the other end of the room, fastening one end of the sash to his waist.

      "Now then, pay attention," he said to his servant, "and do your little best."

      Turning slowly on his heels he gradually approached his servant, while the sash which he held up rolled itself round his waist in regular curves, and gave it a more graceful shape. Garabato with quick movements of his hand changed the position of the band of silk. In some turns the sash was folded double, in others it was completely open, and always adjusted to the matador's waist, smooth and seemingly like one piece without wrinkles or unevenness. In the course of his rotatory journey, Gallardo, scrupulous and very difficult to please in the adornment of his person, several times stopped his forward movement, to step a few paces back and rectify the arrangement.

      "That is not right," he said ill-humouredly. "Curse you! take more care, Garabato!"

      After many halts on the journey, Gallardo came to the last turn, with the whole length of silk wound round his waist. The clever valet had put stitches, pins, and safety-pins all round his master's body, making his clothing literally all one piece. To get out of them the Torero would have to resort to the aid of scissors in other hands. He could not get rid of any one of his garments till he returned to the hotel, unless indeed a bull did it for him in the open Plaza, and they finished his undressing in the Infirmary.

      Gallardo sat down again and Garabato, taking hold of the pig-tail, freed it from the support of the pins, and fastened it to the 'Mona,' a bunch of ribbons like a black cockade, which reminded one of the old "redecilla"[29] of the earliest days of bull-fighting.

      The master stretched himself, as if he wished to put off getting finally into the rest of his costume. He asked Garabato to hand him the cigar he had left on the bedside table, enquired what the time was, and seemed to think that all the clocks had gone fast.

      "It is still early. The lads have not yet come. … I do not like to go early to the Plaza. Every tile in the roof seems to weigh on one when one is waiting there."

      At this moment an hotel servant announced that the carriage with the "cuadrilla"[30] was waiting for him downstairs.

      The time had come! There was no longer any pretext for delaying the moment of his departure. He slipped the gold-embroidered waist-coat over the silk sash, and above this the jacket, a piece of dazzling embroidery in very high relief, as heavy as a piece of armour and flashing with light like live coals. The tobacco-coloured silk was only visible on the inside of the arms, and in two triangles on the back. Almost the whole fabric was hidden beneath a mass of golden tufts and gold-embroidered flowers with coloured precious stones in their petals. The epaulettes were heavy masses of gold embroidery, from which hung innumerable tassels of the same metal. The gold work reached the extreme edge of the jacket where it ended in a thick fringe, which quivered at every step. Between the gold-edged openings of the pockets appeared the corners of two silk handkerchiefs which, like the cravat and sash, were red.

      "Give me 'La Montera.'"[31]

      Out of an oval box Garabato took with great care the fighting montera with black frizzed border and pompons which stood out on either side like large ears. Gallardo put it on, being careful that his mona should remain uncovered, hanging symmetrically down his back.

      "Now the cape."

      From the back of a chair Garabato took the cape called "La Capa de Paseo,"[32] the gala cape, a princely mantle of silk, the same colour as his clothes, and, like them, covered with gold embroidery. Gallardo slung it over one shoulder and then looked at himself in the glass, well satisfied with СКАЧАТЬ