“Why doesn’t the horse move? Why doesn’t it run away from the bull?” she asked in repelled amazement, of Owen.
Owen cleared his throat.
“Didn’t you see? It was blindfolded,” he said.
“But can’t it smell the bull?” she asked.
“Apparently not.—They bring the old wrecks here to finish them off.—I know it’s awful, but it’s part of the game.”
How Kate hated phrases like “part of the game.” What do they mean, anyhow! She felt utterly humiliated, crushed by a sense of human indecency, cowardice of two-legged humanity. In this “brave” show she felt nothing but reeking cowardice. Her breeding and her natural pride were outraged.
The ring servants had cleaned away the mess and spread new sand. The toreadors were playing with the bull, unfurling their foolish cloaks at arm’s length. And the animal, with the red sore running on his shoulder, foolishly capered and ran from one rag to the other, here and there.
For the first time, a bull seemed to her a fool. She had always been afraid of bulls, fear tempered with reverence of the great Mithraic beast. And now she saw how stupid he was, in spite of his long horns and his massive maleness. Blindly and stupidly he ran at the rag, each time, and the toreadors skipped like fat-hipped girls showing off. Probably it needed skill and courage, but it looked silly.
Blindly and foolishly the bull ran ducking its horns each time at the rag, just because the rag fluttered.
“Run at the men, idiot!” said Kate aloud, in her overwrought impatience. “Run at the men, not at the cloaks.”