A childish voice of trembling sweetness broke the silence. Some girl pushing her way to the front would send a "saeta"[97] to Jesus, the three verses of which celebrated the Lord of Great Power, "The most divine sculpture," and the artist Montañes, a companion of the artists of the golden age, who had carved it. The hooded brothers listened motionless, till the conductor of the paso, thinking the pause had been long enough, struck a silver bell on the front of the platform. "Up with it," and the Lord of Great Power, after many oscillations, was hoisted up, while the feet of the invisible porters began to move like tentacles on the ground.
After this came the Virgin, Our Lady of the Greatest Sorrow, for all the parishes sent out two pasos. Under a velvet canopy her golden crown trembled in the surrounding lights. The train of her mantle, which was several yards long, hung down behind the paso, being puffed out by a frame-work of wood, which displayed the splendour of its rich, heavy and splendid embroideries, which must have exhausted the skill and patience of a whole generation.
To the roll of the drums a whole troup of women followed her, their bodies in the shadow, and their faces reddened by the glare of the tapers they carried in her hands. Old barefooted women in mantillas, girls wearing the white clothes which were to have served them as shrouds, women who walked painfully, as if they were suffering from hidden and painful maladies, an assembly of suffering humanity saved from death by the goodness of the Lord of Great Power and His Blessed Mother.
The procession of the pious brotherhood, after having slowly walked through the streets, with long pauses during which they sang hymns, entered the Cathedral, which remained all night with its doors open. With their lighted tapers they wound through the gigantic naves, bringing out of the darkness the immense pillars hung with velvet trimmed with gold, but their light was unable to disperse the darkness gathered in the vaults above. Leaving this crypt-like gloom they came out again under the starlight, and the rising sun ended by surprising the procession still wandering about the streets.
Gallardo was an enthusiast about the Lord of Great Power and the majestic silence of the brotherhood. It was a very serious thing! One might laugh at the other pasos for their disorder and want of devotion. But to laugh at this one!... Never! Besides, in this brotherhood one rubbed against very great people.
Nevertheless, this year the espada decided to abandon the Lord of Great Power, to go out with the brotherhood of la Macarena, who escorted the miraculous Virgin of Hope.
Señora Angustias was delighted when she heard his decision. He owed it to the Virgin, who had saved him after his last "cogida." Besides, this flattered her feelings of plebeian simplicity.
"Every one with his own, Juaniyo. It is all right for you to mix with gentlefolk, but you ought to think that the poor have always loved you, and that now they are speaking against you, because they think you despise them."
The torero knew it but too well. The turbulent populace who sat on the sunny side of the Plaza were beginning to show a certain animosity against him, thinking themselves forgotten. They criticised his constant intercourse with wealthy people, and his desertion of those who had been his first admirers. Gallardo wished therefor to take advantage of every means of flattering those whose applause he wanted. A few days before the procession, he informed the most influential members of la Macarena of his intention to follow in it. He did not wish the people to know it, it was purely an act of devotion, and he wished his intention to remain a secret.
All the same, in a few days the suburb was talking of nothing else, it was the pride of the neighbourhood. "Ah! we must see la Macarena this year," said the gossips as they spoke of the torero's intention. "The Señora Angustias will cover the paso with flowers, it will cost at least a hundred duros. And Juaniyo will hang all his jewellery on the Virgin. A real fortune!"