"But no, he will be none of those things!" he said. "Cascaras! I am becoming an old driveling fool."
Don Jaime knew that God smiles sardonically upon the Spaniard of the people who seeks to rise in the world. He knew that, just as the United States is a country of unlimited opportunities, just so is Spain a country of opportunities limited and few. The Spaniard of the people, strong with heart and gusto, has but two careers open to him. By those two careers and those two careers only, can your ambitious Iberian attain to fame and fortune, and stand greatly above his countrymen.
"He will become a bullfighter, perhaps!" said Don Jaime.
Every man and boy in Spain is an aficionado, a bullfight "fan," a frantic bullfight "bug." The successful bullfighter, be he matador, or murderer of bulls, or only a peon of the cuadrilla, is given rich food with which to garnish his belly; he learns how gold feels when it is minted into money; his photographs are purchased by romantic señoritas; and wherever he goes, he is followed by crowds of tattered street urchins who studiously and hopefully ape his swagger. The whole universe salves and butters him with admiration and envy; and he, the popular picador or the distinguished espada, is in many ways more truly a king of Spain than is Alfonso the King. Jacinto Quesada, he of the heart of fire and the great gusto, might become a bullfighter.
But suddenly Don Jaime remembered that the little Jacinto was a boy of the desolate mountains. He could never see the great bullfights of the cities of the plains, those great bullfights so golden with glamor. Hence never would be waked in him the ambition to become a bullfighter.
"Ea pucs!" said Don Jaime with grimness. "Well, then! There is naught for my Jacinto to do but to become a bandolero!"
The bandolero sells no photographs of himself; he goes houseless in the wind and rain; he bites upon gold coins but rarely; he is hunted persistently by the Spanish police. And yet, from day to day, his deeds have their place in the Hispanic newspapers; he is the hero of a thousand household stories and ballads; the people give him the fat of the countryside to eat; the people love him more even than once they loved that greatest of all bullfighters, the negro Frascuelo!
"Quita!" exclaimed Don Jaime, chuckling. "God forbid!" It had struck him that he might live to the day when people would say in his hearing: "Jacinto Quesada? Ah, he is good, he is brave, he is like the very God Himself. Watch over him in the mountains, Mary, Queen of Angels! and protect him from the Guardia Civil and from treachery!" And he, Torreblanca y Moncada, the prophet who, years before, had seen his vision, would laugh and they would wonder why he laughed.
A bandolero is a Spanish highwayman, a Spanish Dick Turpin, a Spanish Robin Hood. He is a man of a type altogether extinct in countries less backward than Spain. In Spain the type has persisted for five hundred years and still continues to persist. In Spain the type is obstinate, ineradicable.
José Maria was a Spanish bandolero. Diego Corrientes, he who was loved by a duchess, was a Spanish bandolero. And Spanish bandoleros were Visco el Borje, Agua-Dulce, Joaquin Camargo, nicknamed El Vivillo, and Pernales, the blond beast of prey. The bandolero is the blight of Spain. But countries that have been exploited by Spaniards are also affected with the Spanish blight. A bandolero of Mexico is Zapata. And a Mexican bandolero is Pancho Villa, too.