Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Formerly he would have been contented with a very small portion of what he possessed now, but if he retired he would have to curtail those Havanna cigars which he now distributed so lavishly, and those Andalusian wines of fine vintage. He would have to restrain his lordly generosity, and no longer cry "I pay for everything," as he entered a café or a tavern.

So he had lived, and so he must go on living. He was a torero of the old-fashioned style, lavish, arrogant, astonishing every one with scandalous extravagances, but always ready to help misfortune with princely generosity. He did not in the least regret his ostentatious life, and yet they wished him to give it up.

Furthermore, he thought of the expenses of his own household. All of them were accustomed to the easy, careless life of families with little regard for money, as they saw it constantly flowing in, in streams. Besides his mother and his wife he provided for his sister, his loquacious brother-in-law, and the tribe of children now growing up and becoming daily more expensive. He would have to bring into ways of order and economy all these people who had hitherto lived at his expense with happy carelessness and open-handedness. Every one, even poor Garabato, would have to go to the Grange, and work like niggers under the burning sun. His mother, too, would no longer be able to make her last days happy by her kindly generosity to the poor in the suburb. And Carmen also, who although she was economical and tried to limit expenses, would be the first to deprive herself of many little frivolities which beautified life.

Curse it all!... All this represented degradation to the family, and Gallardo felt ashamed that such a thing could possibly happen. It would be a crime to deprive them of what they enjoyed, now they had become accustomed to ease and comfort. And what ought he to do to prevent this?... Simply to throw himself on the bulls, fight as he had fought in former days ... and he would throw himself!...

He replied to his manager's and to Carmen's letters by short and laboriously written epistles, expressing to both his firm intention not to retire—most certainly not.

He was determined to be what he had always been, that he swore to Don José. He would follow his advice. "Zas! a sword thrust, and the bull in his pocket." He felt his courage rising, and with it the capacity of facing all bulls, however big they might be.

He wrote gaily to his wife, though his amour-propre was rather wounded by her doubting his strength. She would soon have news of the next corrida. He intended to astonish the public so that they might be ashamed of their injustice. If the bulls were good ones, he would surpass even Roger de Flor himself!...

Good bulls! This was one of Gallardo's anxieties. Formerly one of his vanities had been never to concern himself with the brutes, never to go and see them at the Plaza before the corrida.

"I kill anything that is sent to me," he said arrogantly.