Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The animal did not move, but he raised his head, as though these shouts reminded him of the pastures he might never see again. "Coronel!"... Till, turning his head he saw a man leaning over the barrier calling him, and rushed straight to attack him. But he stopped half way in his wild rush, then came on slowly till he rubbed his horns against the arms stretched out to him. He came with his chest splashed with the streams of blood from the darts fixed in his neck, and his skin torn by the wounds which showed the blue muscles beneath.... "Coronel! My son!..." And the bull, as if he understood these tender words, raised his muzzle and rubbed the breeder's white whiskers. "Why have you brought me here?" his fierce blood-shot eyes seemed to say; and the Marquis, no longer knowing what he did, kissed the beast's nostrils, wet with his furious snorting, again and again.

"Do not kill him!" some kind soul shouted from the seats, and as though these words reflected the thoughts of the whole audience, an explosion of voices shook the Plaza, and thousands of handkerchiefs waved like white doves. "Do not kill him!" And at that moment the crowd, seized with a vague tenderness, despised their own amusement, abhorred the torero in his showy dress with his useless heroism, and admired the bravery of the brute, to whom they felt themselves inferior; and recognised that among those thousands of reasoning beings, nobility and affection were alone represented by this poor animal.

"I took him away," said the Marquis, almost sobbing. "I returned the manager his two thousand pesetas. I would have given him my whole fortune. After a month on the pasture there was not the vestige of a scar on his neck.... I should have wished him to die of old age, but it is not always the good who prosper in this world. A sulky bull, who would not have dared to look him in the face, killed him treacherously with a blow of his horn."

The Marquis and his fellow-breeders soon forgot their tender sympathy for the animals in the pride they felt at their fierceness. You should have seen the contempt with which they spoke of the enemies of bull-fighting, and of those who clamoured against this art in the name of the protection of animals.

"Follies of foreigners," "Ignorant errors," which confound a butcher's ox with a fighting bull! The Spanish bull is a wild animal: the bravest wild beast in the world. And he recalled several fights between bulls and felines, which had always ended triumphantly for the national beast.

The Marquis laughed as he remembered another of his animals. A fight was arranged in a certain Plaza between a bull, and a lion and a tiger belonging to a celebrated tamer. The breeder sent Barrabas, a vicious animal, which had to be kept apart at the farm, because he had fought with and killed several of his companions.

"I saw this myself," said the Marquis. "There was a huge iron cage in the middle of the circus and inside it was Barrabas. They loosed the lion first, and this accursed feline, taking advantage of a bull being unsuspicious, sprung upon his hind quarters and began to tear him with teeth and claws. Barrabas bounded furiously in order to dislodge him and get him within reach of the horns, which are his defence. At last he succeeded in throwing the lion in front of him and then ... caballeros! it was just like a game of ball!... He tossed him from one horn to another, shaking him like a marionette, till at last, as if he despised him, he threw him on one side, and there lay the so-called king of animals, rolled into a ball, and lying like a cat who has just been beaten.... The second affair was much shorter. As soon as the tiger appeared Barrabas caught him, tossed him in the air, and after shaking him well, threw him into the corner like the other.... Then Barrabas, being an evil-minded beast, trotted up and down, with every indecent display of triumph over his fallen foes."

These anecdotes always drew shouts of laughter from the "Forty-Five." The Spanish bull!... The finest wild animal!... It seemed as if the arrogant bravery of the national animal established the superiority of the country and the race over all others.

When Gallardo began to frequent the club, a fresh topic of conversation had arisen to interrupt the endless talk of bulls and field work.

The "Forty-Five," like every one else in Seville, were talking of the exploits of Plumitas, a brigand, celebrated for his audacity, to whom the useless efforts of his pursuers daily gave fresh fame. The papers spoke of his kindly disposition, as if he were a national personage. The Government, who were questioned in the Cortes, promised a speedy capture, which was never realized. The civil guard were concentrated, and a perfect army was mobilized to follow and catch him, while Plumitas, always alone, with no other help but his carbine and his horse, slipped through those who were following him like a ghost; he would turn on them, when they were few in numbers, and stretch many lifeless, but he was reverenced and helped by all the poor peasantry, wretched slaves of the enormous landed interest, who looked upon the bandit as the avenger of the starving, a just but cruel justiciary, after the fashion of the ancient armour-clad knights errant. He exacted money from the rich, and then with the manner of an actor before an immense audience, he would assist some poor old woman, or some labourer with a large family. These generosities were greatly exaggerated by the gossip of the rural population, who always had the name of Plumitas on their lips, but who became both blind and dumb when any enquiries were made by the Government soldiers.