"As for that—No. I know the girl, and her poor mother was a friend of mine at the Fabrica. She is as pure as a river of gold, well mannered, good—handsome.... I have already told Juan that as far as I am concerned ... the sooner the better."
She was an orphan living with some uncles who kept a small provision shop in the suburb. Her father, a former wine merchant, had left her two houses in the suburb of la Macarena.
"It is not much," said Señora Angustias; "still the girl will not come empty handed, she brings something of her own.... And for clothes? Jesus; those little hands are worth their weight in gold, see how she embroiders; how she is preparing her dowry!"
Gallardo remembered vaguely having played with her as a child, close to the doorway where the cobbler worked, while their mothers gossiped. She was then like a little dry, dark lizard with gipsy eyes, the whole pupil as black as a drop of ink, the whites blueish and the corners pale pink. When she ran, nimbly as a boy, she showed legs like thin reeds, and her hair flew wildly about her head in rebellious and tangled curls like black snakes. Afterwards he had lost sight of her, not meeting her again till many years after when he was a novillero, and was already beginning to make a name.
It was on a day of Corpus, one of the few festivals in which the women, generally kept at home by their almost Oriental laziness, all come forth like Moorish women set at liberty, in their lace mantillas, pinned to their breasts with bunches of carnations, Gallardo saw a young girl, tall, slim but at the same time strongly built, her waist well poised above her curved and ample hips, showing the vigour of youth. Her face, of a rice-like paleness, flushed as she saw the torero, and her eyes fell, hidden beneath their long lashes.
That gachi knows me, ... thought Gallardo vainly, most probably she has seen me in the Plaza.
But after following the young girl and her aunt he learnt that it was Carmen, the playmate of his childhood, and he felt confused and delighted at the marvellous transformation of the little black lizard of former days.
In a short time they became betrothed, and all the neighbours spoke of the courtship, which they considered so flattering to the suburb.
"I am like that," said Gallardo, assuming the air of a good prince. "I do not care to imitate those toreros who, when they marry ladies, marry nothing but hats, and feathers and flounces, I prefer what belongs to my own class, a rich shawl, a good figure, grace.... Olé, ya!"
His friends, delighted, hastened to praise the girl.