Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

When she found herself in the holy place, close and hot from the crowd of people who had watched the torero's prayers, she fixed her eyes in astonishment on the poverty of the altar. Four lights only were burning before the Virgin of the Dove, which seemed to her a wretched tribute.

She opened her purse to give a duro to the employé. Could he not bring some more tapers?... The man scratched his head. Tapers? tapers? In the purlieus of the Plaza such things were not to be found. But he suddenly remembered that the sisters of a certain matador always brought some wax tapers whenever he fought there, and the last supply was not all consumed, they must be in some corner of the chapel. After a long search they were found, but there were no candlesticks; however, the employé was a man of resource, and fetching some empty bottles he stuck the candles in their necks and placed them among the other lights.

Carmen knelt down, and the two men took advantage of her absorbed devotion to rush away to the Plaza, anxious to see the first events of the corrida.

She remained alone contemplating with curiosity the dusty painting reddened by the lights. She did not know this Virgin, but surely she must be gentle and kind, like the one in Seville, to whom she had prayed so often. Besides, she was the toreros' Virgin, the one who heard their last prayer, when coming danger gave those rough men a pious sincerity. On that pavement also her husband had often knelt.

Her lips moved, repeating the prayers with automatic speed, but her thoughts were far away, attracted by the noise of the crowd which reached her.

Ay! the roaring of that intermittent volcano, the surging of those distant waves, broken at times by a tragic silence.... Carmen fancied she could unseen watch the corrida. She could guess by the different intonations of the noises in the Plaza the course of the tragedy which was being unfolded in the circus. Sometimes it was an explosion of indignant cries accompanied by whistling, at others thousands and thousands of voices seemed uttering unintelligible words. Suddenly there was a scream of terror, long and strident, which seemed to rise even to heaven, a terrified and gasping exclamation which made her see thousands of outstretched heads, pale with emotion, following the rapid rush of a bull on the tracks of a man ... but the cries suddenly ceased and calm returned. The danger was past.

Sometimes there were long spells of absolute silence, in which the humming of the flies could be heard, a silence so profound it seemed as if the immense circus must be empty, as if the fourteen thousand people on its benches did not even breathe, and that Carmen herself was the only living creature within its walls.

Suddenly this silence was broken by an immense and noisy uproar, so loud one would have thought that every brick in the building was knocking against its neighbour, a wild volley of applause which made the whole place shake. In the courtyard close by the chapel the sound of whacks on the loins of the horses tied there was heard, then the sound of iron hoofs on the pavement, lastly the sound of voices. "Who is hit?" And fresh picadors were called into the arena.

To these distant noises were now joined others nearer and more terrifying. The sound of steps to the rooms near, doors hurriedly opened, the panting breathing, and gasping voices of several men, as if they were staggering under a great weight.

"It is nothing ... only a bruise. You are not bleeding, before the corrida is ended you will be on your horse again."