Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

"Oh! the brute!" ... they roared from the benches, not finding any better word with which to express their unbounded astonishment.... "What a savage!"...

Hats flew into the arena. Overwhelming rounds of applause ran like a torrent of hail from bench to bench, as the matador advanced through the arena, following the circle of the barriers, till he arrived opposite the presidential chair.

Then as Gallardo opened his arms to salute the president, the thundering ovation redoubled, all shouted claiming the honours of the "maestria"[42] for the matador. "He ought to be given the ear."[43] "Never was the honour better deserved." "Sword-thrusts like that are seldom seen," and the enthusiasm waxed even greater when one of the attendants of the Plaza presented him with a dark, hairy, bloody triangle; it was the tip of one of the beast's ears.

The third bull was already in the circus, and still the ovation to Gallardo continued, as if the audience had not recovered from its astonishment, and nothing that could possibly happen during the rest of the corrida could be of the slightest interest.

The other toreros, pale with professional jealousy, exerted themselves to attract the attention of the public, but the applause they gained sounded weak and timid after the outburst that had preceded it. The public seemed exhausted by their former excess of enthusiasm, and only paid absent-minded attention to the fresh events unfolding themselves in the arena.

Soon violent disputes arose between the rows of seats.

The supporters of the other matadors who by this time had become calm, and had recovered from the wave of enthusiasm which had mastered them in common with everyone else, began to justify their former spontaneous outburst by criticising Gallardo.

"Very brave," "very daring," "suicidal," but that was not art. On the other hand the worshippers of the idol who were even more vehement and brutal, and who admired his audacity from innate sympathy, were rabid with the rage of zealots who hear doubts cast on the miracles of their own particular saint.

Various minor incidents which caused commotion amidst the benches also distracted the attention of the audience. Suddenly there was a commotion in some section of the amphitheatre. Everybody stood up, turning their backs on the arena, and arms and sticks were flourished above the sea of heads. The rest of the audience forgot the arena, and concentrated their attention on the fracas, and the large numbers painted on the walls of the inside barrier, which distinguished the blocks of seats.