Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The bull remained motionless, his head lowered, his tongue hanging out. There fell on the crowd that silence always preceding the mortal estocade, a silence even greater than absolute solitude, as it came from thousands of hard-held breathings. The silence was so profound that the slightest noise reached to the topmost benches. All heard the rattle of the pieces of wood knocking against each other. It was Gallardo, who with the point of his rapier was setting aside the burnt banderillas which had fallen down between the horns. After this arrangement, which would facilitate the mortal stroke, the crowd stretched their necks even further forward, feeling the mysterious intercourse re-established between their will and that of the matador. Now! they all said to themselves, he would overthrow the bull with one masterly stroke. They all felt the espada's determination.

Gallardo threw himself on the bull, and all the populace breathed loudly after their breathless expectation. But from the encounter the animal emerged, rushing with furious bellowing, while the benches broke out into whistling and protests. The same thing had happened once again. Gallardo had turned away his face and shortened his arm at the moment of killing. The animal carried off the rapier in his neck, loose and bending, and after a few steps the steel blade flew out of the flesh, rolling on the sand.

Some of the people blamed Gallardo, and the spell which had united them to the espada at the beginning of the fiesta was broken. Their distrust of the torero reappeared and their irritating censures. All seemed to have forgotten their late enthusiasm.

Gallardo picked up his rapier, with bent head, and without the heart to protest against the discontent of a crowd so tolerant to others, so harsh and unjust towards himself, and turned again towards the bull.

In his confusion he thought some other torero placed himself by his side. It was El Nacional.

"Steady, Juan! Don't get flurried."

Curse it!... Was this same thing always going to happen to him? Could he not put his arm between the horns as formerly and drive the rapier in up to the hilt? Was he going to spend the rest of his life as a laughing-stock for the public? An ox whom they had been obliged to fire!...

He placed himself opposite the animal, who seemed waiting for him, steady on its legs. He thought it useless to make any more passes with the muleta. So he placed himself "in profile" with the red cloth hanging on the ground, and the rapier horizontal at the height of his eye. Now to thrust in his arm!

With a sudden impulse the audience rose to their feet, for a few seconds the man and the bull formed one single mass, and so moved on some steps. The connoisseurs were already waving their hands anxious to applaud. He had thrown himself in to kill as in his best day. That was a "true" estocade!

But suddenly the man was thrown out from between the horns by a crushing blow, and rolled on the sand. The bull lowered his head, picking up the inert body, lifting it for an instant on his horns to let it fall again, then rushing on his mad career with the rapier plunged up to the hilt in his neck.