Wanderings in Spain. Theophile Gautier

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СКАЧАТЬ not the wound was mortal. The horse was only unseamed; although his wound was most horrible to behold, it could be healed. The entrails are replaced in his belly, a needle and thread are passed through the skin, and the poor creature is still capable of being used again. Rodriguez gave him the spur, and cantered up to take another position at a little distance off.

      It now seemed to strike the bull that all he should get from the picadores were hard thrusts, and he began to feel a desire to return to his pasture. Instead of entering again without hesitation, after making a few bounds, he returned, with the most dogged resolution, to his querencia; the querencia is the technical term for some corner or other that the bull chooses for a resting-place, and to which he always retires after having made the cogida. This word is employed to designate the attack of the bull, while la suerte is used in speaking of the torrero, who is likewise named diestro.

      A swarm of chulos ran up and waved their bright-coloured capas before the bull's eyes; one of them was even insolent enough to wrap his cloak, that was rolled up, round the animal's head, making him look exactly like the sign of the Bœuf à la mode, which most people have seen at Paris. The bull was furious, and got rid, in the best way he could, of this ill-timed ornament, throwing the innocent piece of stuff into the air, and trampling on it with great rage when it fell on the ground. Taking advantage of this new access of fury, a chulo began irritating him, and drew him towards the picadores. On finding himself face to face with his foes, the bull hesitated, and then, making up his mind, rushed at Sevilla with such force that the horse fell with his four feet in the air, for Sevilla's arm is a buttress that nothing can bend. Sevilla fell under the horse, which is the best manner of falling, because the rider is then protected from the bull's horns, the body of his steed serving him as a shield. The chulos came up, and the horse got off with only a gash in his thigh. They raised Sevilla, who clambered into his saddle again with the greatest coolness imaginable. The horse of Antonio Rodriguez, the other picador, was less fortunate; he received so severe a thrust in the breast that the bull's horn entered up to the root, and disappeared entirely in the wound. While the bull was endeavouring to free his head from the body of the horse, Antonio clung to the edge of the tablas, which he cleared, thanks to the chulos, for when a picador is thrown, he is so weighed down by the iron lining of his boots that he finds it as difficult to move as did the knights of old when encased in their armour.

      The poor horse, left to himself, crossed the arena, staggering as if he had been drunk, and entangling his feet in his entrails. A flood of black blood gushed impetuously from his wound, marking the sand with intermittent zigzag lines, which attested the unequalness of his course. At length he fell near the tablas. Two or three times he raised his head and rolled his blue eyes, that were already glazed, drawing back his lips, white with foam, and exposing his fleshless teeth. He struck the ground feebly with his tail, while his hind legs moved convulsively and kicked out for the last time, as if he wished to break the thick skull of Death with his hard hoof. He was hardly dead when the muchachos on service, seeing that the bull was engaged somewhere else, ran up and took off his saddle and bridle. He remained thus, lying on his flank, like some dark outline upon the sand. He was so slight, so flat, that he might have been mistaken for a profile cut out of black paper. I had already remarked, at Montfaucon, what strangely fantastic forms horses assume after death. Of all animals there are certainly none whose dead bodies are so melancholy to look at as that of a horse. His head, that is so noble and pure in form, is so modelled and flattened by the terrible hand of Nothingness that it seems as if it had been inhabited by a human mind; while his dishevelled mane and streaming tail have something picturesque and poetical about them. A dead horse is a corpse; every other animal that has once ceased to live is nothing more nor less than carrion.

      I dwell thus upon the death of this horse, because it excited in me a more distressing feeling than anything else I ever saw at a bull-fight. But this horse was not the only victim that day. Fourteen others were stretched dead in the arena, one bull alone killing five.

      The picador returned on a fresh horse, and a number of attacks, more or less successful, then ensued. But the bull was beginning to be tired, and his fury to abate, whereupon the banderilleros advanced with their darts, furnished with little pieces of paper, and in a short time the bull's neck was ornamented with a collar of pennons, which all his efforts to shake off only fixed more firmly. A little banderillero of the name of Majaron was particularly bold and successful in discharging his darts, and sometimes he would even cut an entrechat before retiring: as a natural consequence, he was greatly applauded. When the bull had seven or eight banderillas fluttering about him, and felt his skin pierced by their darts, and heard the rustling of their paper pennons in his ears, he began to run about in all directions, and bellow in the most horrible manner. His black muzzle became white with foam, and, in his blind fury, he butted so violently against one of the doors, that he broke it off its hinges. The carpenters, who were closely watching his movements, immediately replaced it, while a chulo enticed him in another direction; but was pursued so closely, that he had scarcely time to clear the barrier. The bull, exasperated and lashed to the highest pitch of fury, made one prodigious effort and followed him over the tablas. All the persons in the intermediate space jumped with marvellous rapidity into the arena, while the bull, receiving on his passage a shower of blows from the sticks and hats of the first row of spectators, re-entered by another door.

      The picadores now retired, leaving a free field to the espada, Juan Pastor, who proceeded to salute the box of the ayuntamiento, and requested permission to kill the bull. As soon as this was granted, he threw his montera into the air, as much as to say that he was about to stake everything upon a single cast, and then walked up to the bull with a deliberate step, concealing his sword under the red folds of his muleta.

      The espada now waved his piece of scarlet cloth several times, and the bull rushed blindly at it. By a mere movement of his body, the espada avoided the animal's attack. The latter soon returned, however, butting furiously at the light cloth, which he pushed on one side, without being able to pierce it. The favourable instant was come: the espada placed himself exactly opposite the bull, waving his muleta with his left hand, and holding his sword horizontally, with the point on a level with the animal's horns. It is difficult to convey by words an idea of the fearful curiosity, the frantic attention produced by this situation, which is worth all the plays Shakspeare ever wrote. A few seconds more, and one of the two actors will be killed! Which will it be, the man or the bull? There they stand, face to face; the man has no defensive weapon of any kind, he is dressed as if he were going to a ball, in pumps and silk stockings. A woman's pin would pierce through his satin jacket; a mere rag and a slight sword are all that he has to save his life. In this fight all the material advantages belong to the bull, who possesses two terrible horns as sharp as daggers, immense force, and that animal fury which is not conscious of danger. But then, on the other hand, the man has his sword and his courage; the eyes of twelve thousand spectators are fixed upon him, and in a few moments, young and beautiful women will applaud him with their delicate white hands.

      The muleta was suddenly thrown on one side, leaving the matador's body exposed to view; the bull's horns were not an inch from his breast; I thought he was lost. A silvery flash passed with the rapidity of lightning between the two crescents, and the bull fell upon his knees with a roar of pain. He had got the hilt of the sword between his shoulders, just as the stag of Saint Hubert is represented in Albert Dürer's marvellous engraving, bearing a crucifix in the midst of his branching antlers.

      Thunders of applause burst forth from all parts of the amphitheatre; the palcos of the nobility, the gradas cubiertas of the middle classes, the tendidos of the manolos and manolas cried and shouted with all the ardour and petulance which distinguish the natives of southern climes, "Bueno! Bueno! Viva el Barbero! Viva!!!"

      The blow which the espada had just given is held in high estimation, and called la estocada a vuela pies; the bull dies without losing one СКАЧАТЬ