Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Arrived at the enclosures the foremost riders drew to either side, leaving the gateway open, and the whole herd, an avalanche of dust, pawings, snortings and bells, rushed in like an overwhelming torrent and the gate was immediately closed after the last animal.

They tore through the first enclosure without noticing that they were trapped, the "cabestros," taught by experience and obedient to the shepherds, stood aside to let them pass into the second, where the herd only stopped on finding a blank wall before them.

Now the boxing began. One by one they were driven, by shouts, waving cloths, and blows from garrochas, into a narrow lane, at the end of which stood the travelling box, with both its side doors lowered. It looked like a small tunnel, through which the brutes could see a field beyond, with animals quietly grazing. The suspicious bulls guessed some danger in this small tunnel, and had to be driven on by clappings and whistlings and pricks. Finally they would make a dash for the quiet pasture beyond, making the sloping platform leading to the box shake as they rushed up it, but as soon as they had mounted this, the door in front of them was suddenly closed, and then equally quickly the one behind, and the bull was caught in a cage where he could only just stand up or lie down comfortably. The box was then wheeled into the railway, and another one took its place, till all the herd were successfully entrained.

When the first intoxication of Gallardo's good fortune had passed off, he looked at Doña Sol with the utmost astonishment, wondering in the hours of their greatest intimacy if all great ladies were like this one. The caprices and fickleness of her character bewildered him. He had never dared to address her as "tu," indeed she had never invited him to such a familiarity, and on the one occasion when with slow and hesitating tongue he had attempted it, he had seen in her golden eyes such a gleam of anger and surprise, that he had drawn back ashamed, and had returned to the former mode of speech.

She, on the other hand, spoke to him as "tu," but only in the hours of privacy. If she had to write to him asking him not to come, or saying she was going out with her relations, she always used the ceremonious "uste" and there were no expressions of affection, only the cold courtesies that might be written to a friend of an inferior class.

"Oh! that gachi," murmured Gallardo, disheartened; "it seems as if she had always lived with rascals who showed her letters to every one. One would think she cannot believe me to be a gentleman because I am a matador."

Some of her eccentricities left the torero frowning and sad. Sometimes on going to the house one of the magnificent servants would coldly bar his way. "The Señora was not at home," or "The Señora had gone out," and he knew that it was a lie, feeling the presence of Doña Sol a short distance from him, the other side of the curtained doors.

"The fuel is spent!" said the espada to himself, "I will not return. That gachi shall not laugh at me."

But when he did return, she received him with open arms, clasping him close in her firm white hands, with her eyes wide open and vague, and a strange light in them which seemed to speak of mental derangement.

"Why do you perfume yourself?" she said, as if she perceived the most unpleasant smells. "It is unworthy of you. I should like you to smell of bulls, of horses. Those are fine scents! Don't you love them? Say yes, Juanin, my animal."