Spain, v. 1 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

It is a moment of keen excitement, of unexpressible anxiety: all eyes are fixed on the door by which the bull will enter; all hearts are beating high; a profound silence broods over the whole circus; one hears only the bellowing of the bull as he advances from cell to cell in the darkness of his vast prison; one can almost hear him crying, “Blood! blood!” The horses tremble, the picadores grow pale: another instant a blare of trumpets, the door is thrown wide open, and the terrible bull dashes into the arena saluted by a terrific shout, which bursts at that moment from ten thousand throats. The butchery has begun.

Ah! it is a good thing to have strong nerves: at that moment one turns as white as a corpse.

I can only remember confusedly what followed in the first instance: I do not know where I could have been. The bull rushed against the first picador, retreated, continued his course, and rushed upon the second; if there was a struggle, I do not remember it; then a moment later he rushed against the third, ran to the centre of the arena, stood and looked about him: I too looked about and covered my face with my hands. All that part of the arena where the bull had passed was streaked with blood; the first horse lay dead on the ground with his belly ripped open and his entrails scattered about; the second, with his breast torn by a deep gash from which blood was streaming, staggered about here and there; the third was thrown to the ground and tried in vain to rise; the chulos hurried in, raised the picadores from the ground, took the saddle and bridle from the dead horse, and tried to help the wounded one to his feet: an infernal yell resounded from every part of the circus; thus the spectacle usually begins. The first to receive the onslaught of the bull are the picadores; they sit firmly awaiting him and plant the lance between the head and shoulders of the bull as he is in the act of fastening his horns in the horse. The lance, be it noted, has only a small point, which cannot make a deep wound, and the picadores are obliged by sheer force of arm to ward off the bull and save their steeds. To do this one must have a sure eye, an arm of bronze, and a dauntless heart; they do not always succeed; indeed, they usually fail, and the bull plants his horns in the horse’s belly and the picador is thrown to the ground. Then the capeadores run forward, and while the bull is shaking his horns free from the entrails of his victim they wave their capas before his eyes, turn his attention, make him follow them and leave the fallen horseman in safety; whereupon the chulos come to his aid, and help him again into the saddle if the horse can still stand, or carry him off to the infirmary if he has broken his head.

The bull stood panting in the middle of the arena with bloody horns, looking around as if to say, “Have you had enough?” A band of capeadores ran toward him, surrounded him, and commenced to tease and badger him, making him rush here and there, waving their capas before his eyes, passing them over his head, leading him on, and escaping with the nimblest turns, to return to tease him again, and again flee from him. And the bull turns on them one after another, and chases them as far as the barrier, where he butts his horns against the boards, stamps, cuts capers, bellows, buries his horns in the bodies of the dead horses as he passes, tries to jump into the course, and rushes around the arena in every direction. Meanwhile the other picadores come in to take the places of the two whose horses had been killed, and take their positions at some distance from each other, over beside the toril with lances in rest, ready for the attack of the bull. The capeadores dextrously draw him in that direction, and, seeing the first horse, he made a plunge toward him with lowered head. But this time his blow was parried: the lance of the picador was fixed in his shoulder and checked him.

The bull was stubborn; he strained and lunged forward with all his weight; but in vain: the picador held firm, the bull retreated, the horse was saved, and a thunderous burst of applause greeted the man. The other picador was less fortunate: the bull attacked; he did not succeed in planting his lance firmly; the terrible horns penetrated the horse’s belly as quickly as a sword might have done, were violently twisted in the wound, and withdrawn; the intestines of the poor animal fell through and remained dangling, like a great bag, almost down to the ground; the picador remained in the saddle. There a horrible sight was witnessed. Instead of dismounting, the picador, perceiving that the wound was not mortal, put the spurs to the horse and rode to another place to await a second attack: the horse crossed the arena with his entrails hanging from his belly, striking against his legs, and impeding his steps. The bull followed for a moment and stopped. At that point there was blast on the trumpets: it was the signal for the picadores to withdraw. A gate was opened, and they galloped out one after another; the two dead horses were left, and here and there were pools and streaks of blood which two chulos covered with earth.

After the picadores come the banderilleros. And to the uninitiated this part of the performance is the most entertaining, for the reason that it is the least cruel. The banderillas are little arrows about two spans in length, ornamented with colored paper and provided with a metal tip so formed that when it once penetrates the skin it cannot be withdrawn, and the bull with his running and shaking only drives it farther in. The banderillero takes two of these arrows, one in each hand, and assumes a position about fifteen paces distant from the bull, and then, by waving his hands and shouting, provokes an attack. The bull rushes toward him: the banderillero in his turn runs toward the bull, and just as the bull’s head is lowered to plunge his horns into the man’s body the banderillero plants the arrows in his neck, one on this side, the other on that, and saves himself by a quick turn. If he stops, if his foot slips, if he hesitates an instant, he will be spitted like a frog. The bull bellows, snorts, tosses himself, and turns with dreadful fury to follow the capeadores. In a minute they have all jumped into the course; the arena is cleared, and the brute, with foaming mouth, bloodshot eyes, and neck streaked with blood, stamps the ground, shakes himself, runs at the barrier, demands vengeance, thirsts for blood and slaughter: no one appears to confront him; the spectators fill the air with the cry, “Forward! courage!” “The next banderillero!” The next banderillero advances and plants his arrows, then a third, and then the first again. On that day there were eight arrows inserted. The poor beast, when he felt the last two, gave a long bellow, distressing and horrible, and, dashing after one of his enemies, followed him to the barrier, took the leap, and fell with him into the course. The ten thousand spectators were all on their feet in an instant, crying, “He has killed him!” But the banderillero had escaped. The bull ran backward and forwarded between the two barriers under a rain of blows and thrusts, until he was driven to an open gate and returned to the arena as the gate closed after him. Then all the banderilleros and all the capeadores rushed toward him again: one passed behind and gave his tail a jerk, and disappeared like a flash of lightning; another as he flew past wound a capa around his horns; a third actually had the audacity to snatch off with one hand a little silk bow which was tied to his tail; a fourth, the most rash of them all, planted a pole in the ground as the bull was running, took a flying leap, and passed entirely over him and landed on the other side, throwing the stick between the legs of the astonished animal; and they did all this with the quickness of jugglers and the grace of dancers, as though they were playing with a lamb. Meanwhile, the immense crowd made the circus resound with their laughter and applause and cries of delight, admiration, and terror.

Another blast of the trumpet; the banderilleros are done. Now for the espada. It is a solemn moment, the crisis of the drama. The crowd is still, the ladies lean forward in their boxes, the king rises to his feet. The famous Frascuelo, holding in one hand the sword and in the other the muleta, a piece of red stuff fastened to a stick, enters the arena, presents himself before the royal box, raises his cap, and in a poetic phrase consecrates to the king the bull that he is about to kill; then, tossing his cap in the air, as if to say, “Victory or death!” followed by a splendid train of capeadores, he advances resolutely toward the bull. Here follows a veritable hand-to-hand struggle worthy of Homer’s song. On one side is the brute with his terrible horns, with his enormous strength, his thirst for blood, maddened by pain, blinded by rage, fierce, bloody, terrible; on the other, a young man of twenty, dressed like a dancer, on foot, alone and defenceless but for the short, slender sword in his hand. But the gaze of twenty thousand eyes is bent upon him. The king has a gift at hand; his sweetheart is above there in a box, with her eyes fixed upon him; a thousand ladies are trembling for his life. The bull pauses and looks at him; he looks at the bull and waves the red cloth before him. The bull dashes under it; the espada springs aside; that terrible horn grazes his hip, strikes the red cloth, and cleaves the empty air. A shout of applause bursts from the entire balcony, from all the boxes and galleries. The ladies raise their opera-glasses and cry, “He has not paled!”

All is silence again; there is not a sound; not a whisper. The bold torero flutters the muleta before the eyes of the infuriated animal, passes it overhead between his horns and around his neck, makes him recede, advance, turn, jump; invites an attack ten times, and ten times by the slightest motion escapes death; lets his muleta fall, and picks it up under the eyes of the bull; laughs in his face, taunts him, insults him, and makes sport of him: all at once he stops, puts himself on guard, raises his sword, and takes aim; the bull looks at him; another instant and they will rush toward each other. One of them must die; ten thousand glances run with lightning rapidity from the point of the sword to the tips of the horns; ten thousand hearts beat fast with anxiety and terror; the faces are all tense with excitement; one does not hear a breath; the vast crowd seems petrified. Another instant—the time has come! The bull dashes forward; the man brandishes his sword; a single loud cry, and then a tempestuous burst of applause breaks forth on every side; the sword has been buried to its hilt in the bull’s neck; the bull reels and with a stream of blood flowing from his mouth falls as though he had been struck by lightning.

The man has conquered! Then follows an indescribable tumult; the multitude seems to grow mad; all leap to their feet, wave their arms, and cry at the top of their voices; the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, clap their hands, and shake their fans; the band strikes up; the victorious espada approaches the barrier and makes the circuit of the arena. As he passes, from the galleries, the boxes, and the balconies the spectators, carried away by their enthusiasm, shower upon him packages of cigars, purses, canes, hats, anything which they can lay their hands on; in a few moments the fortunate torero has his arms full of trophies, calls the capeadores to his assistance, throws back the hats to his admirers, thanks them, and responds as well as he can to the salutes, the praises, and the glorious titles with which he is hailed upon every side, and finally comes to the royal box.

Then all eyes are riveted on the king. The king puts his hand in his pocket, takes out a cigar-case full of bank-notes, and tosses it down; the torero catches it in the air, and the multitude bursts into applause. Meanwhile the band is playing a dirge for the bull; a gate opens, four enormous mules gallop in, ornamented with plumes, tassels, and ribbons of yellow and red, driven by a band of chulos, who shout and crack their whips; the dead horses are drawn out one after another, and finally the bull is removed, whereupon he is at once carried to a little square near the circus, where a crowd of gamins is waiting to dip their fingers in his blood, after which he is flayed, butchered, and sold.