Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Little by little Gallardo had succeeded, as an unheard-of privilege, in introducing himself into this society. The torero would come at first under pretext of looking for his manager, and ended by sitting down among the gentlemen, although there were many who were no friends to him and who had chosen other matadors from among his rivals.

The decoration of the house, according to Don José, was full of "character." The lower part of the walls were covered with Moorish tiles, and on the immaculately white walls hung announcements of ancient corridas, stuffed bulls' heads, of animals celebrated either for the number of horses they had killed, or for having wounded some celebrated torero; together with procession capes and rapiers presented by espadas who had "cut off their pigtails" and retired from the profession.

Servants in dress coats served the gentlemen in their country clothes, or possibly in their shirt sleeves, during the hot summer evenings. During the Holy Week and other great holidays in Seville, when illustrious enthusiasts from every part of Spain came and paid their respects to the "Forty-Five," the servants wore knee breeches and powdered wigs, donned the royal livery of red and yellow, and dressed thus, like servants of the royal household, handed glasses of Manzanilla to these wealthy gentlemen, many of whom had even dispensed with their ties.

In the evenings when the doyen, the illustrious Marquis de Moraima, came in, the members in big arm-chairs formed a circle round him, and the famous breeder in a chair higher than the others presided over the conversation. For the most part they began by talking of the weather. Most of them were great breeders or wealthy landed proprietors, whose living depended on the necessities of the earth, and the variations of the weather. The Marquis explained the observations that his wisdom had gathered, during interminable rides over the lonely Andalusian plains, so immense and solitary, with wide horizons, like the sea, on which the bulls, slowly moving among the waves of verdure, seemed like basking sharks. He could generally see some piece of paper blown about the street which served as a basis to his predictions. The drought, that cruel scourge of the Andalusian plains, gave them conversation for a whole afternoon, and when after weeks of anxious expectation the overcast sky would discharge a few big hot drops, the great country gentlemen would smile, rubbing their hands, and the Marquis would say sententiously, as he looked at the great round splashes on the pavement:

"Glory be to God!... Each drop of this is worth a five duro piece."

When they were not anxious about the weather, cattle was the subject of their conversation, and especially bulls, of whom they spoke tenderly, almost as if there were some relationship between them. The other breeders listened with deference to the Marquis's opinions, on account of the advantage given him by his large fortune. The simple "aficionados" who never left the town admired his skill in producing fierce animals. What this man knew!... He himself, as he spoke of the extreme care required by the bulls, seemed quite convinced of the importance of his occupation. Out of ten calves, at least eight or nine were fit only for the butcher, after they had been tried to judge of their fierceness. Only one or two who had shown themselves brave and ready to charge against the iron of the garrocha were judged fit to pass as fighting animals; thenceforward these lived apart, with every sort of care. And what care!

"A breeding establishment of wild bulls ought not to be a business," said the Marquis. "It is an expensive luxury. It is true we are paid four or five times as much for a fighting bull as for the others, but then, see what it costs to rear!"

They must be watched constantly, their food and water considered, moved from one place to another, according to variations of temperature, in fact every bull costs more than the maintenance of a family, and when at last they were brought to the highest pitch, they had still to be carefully watched up to the last moment, in order that they should not disgrace themselves in the circus, but be fit to do honour to the badge of the herd which hung round their necks.

In certain Plazas the Marquis had even fought with the managers and the authorities, refusing to hand over his animals, because a band was stationed just over the bulls' entrance. The noise of the instruments bewildered the noble animals, robbing them of their bravery and their calmness as they entered the Plaza.