Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Her simple faith, which anxiety peopled with vague superstitions, made her go from altar to altar, weighing in her mind the merits and miracles of each image. Some days she would go to San Gil, the popular church which had witnessed the happiest day of her life, to kneel before the Virgin de la Macarena. By the light of the numerous tapers she ordered to be lighted, she would gaze at the dark face of that statue with its black eyes and long lashes, which many said so singularly resembled her own. In her she trusted, she was not "the Lady of Hope" for nothing, surely at that time she was protecting Juan with her divine power.

But suddenly uncertainty and fear crept through her beliefs, rending them. The Virgin was only a woman, and women can do so little! Their fate is to suffer and to weep, as she was weeping for her husband, as that other had wept for her Son. She must confide in stronger powers, so with the egoism of pain, she abandoned la Macarena without scruple, like a useless friend, and went to the church of San Lorenzo in search of "Our Father, Jesus of Great Power." The Man-God with His crown of thorns, and His cross by His side, perspiring, and tearful, an image that the sculptor Montañes had known how to make terrifying.

The dramatic sadness of the Nazarene, stumbling over the stones, borne down by the weight of His cross, seemed to console the poor wife. The Lord of Great Power! ... this vague but grandiose title tranquilised her. If that God dressed in purple velvet with gold embroideries would only listen to her sighs and prayers, repeated hurriedly, with dizzy rapidity, so that the greatest possible number of words should be said in the shortest possible time, she was sure that Juan would come safe and sound out of the arena, where he was at that moment fighting. At other times she would give money to a sacristan to light some wax tapers and would spend hours watching the rosy reflection of the red tongues on the image, fancying she saw on its varnished face in the changing light and shadow, smiles of consolation, which augured happiness.

The Lord of Great Power did not deceive her. When she returned to her house the little blue paper arrived, which she opened with trembling hands. "Nothing new." She could breathe again, and sleep, like the criminal who is freed for the moment from the fear of instant death, but in two or three days the torment of uncertainty, the terrible fear of the unknown, would begin afresh.

In spite of the love Carmen professed for her husband, there were times when her heart rose in rebellion. If she had only known what this life was before her marriage!... Now and then, impelled by the community of suffering she would go and see the wives of the men who composed Juan's cuadrilla, as if those women could give her news.

The wife of El Nacional, who had a tavern in the same quarter, received the chief's wife tranquilly, and seemed surprised at her fears. She was used to the life, and her husband must be quite well as he sent no news. Telegrams were dear, and a banderillero earned little enough. When the newspaper sellers did not shout an accident, it meant that nothing untoward had happened, and she went on attending to the affairs of her tavern, as if anxiety could not penetrate the hard rind of her susceptibilities.

Other times she would cross the bridge and penetrate into the suburb of Triana, in search of the wife of Potaje the picador, a kind of gitana, who lived in a hovel like a fowl house, surrounded by dirty copper coloured brats, whom she ordered about and terrified by her stentorian shouts. The visit of the chief's wife filled her with pride, but her anxieties made her laugh. She ought not to be afraid, the men on foot nearly always got clear of the bull, and the Señor Juan was very lucky in throwing himself on the beast. Bulls killed few people, the terrible things were the falls from horse-back. It was well known what was the end of nearly all picadors after a life of horrible tosses: he who did not end his life in an unforeseen and sudden accident, generally died mad. No doubt poor Potaje would die in this way, he would have endured all these hardships for a handful of duros, whereas others....

She did not conclude her sentence, but her eyes expressed a mute protest against the injustice of fate, against those fine fellows who directly they handled a sword, appropriated all the plaudits, the popularity, and the money, running no more risk than their humble colleagues.

Little by little Carmen became accustomed to the existence. The cruel waits on the days of a corrida, the visits to the saints, the superstitions, doubts, were all accepted as forming part and parcel of her life. Besides her husband's usual good luck, and the constant conversation in the house on the chances of the fight, ended by familiarizing her with the danger. And at last the bull came to be for her a fairly good-natured and noble animal, who had come into the world for the express purpose of enriching and giving fame to their matadors.

She had never been to a corrida of bulls. Since the afternoon when she had seen her future husband at his first novillada, she had never been near the Plaza. She felt she should not have the courage to see a corrida, even though Gallardo were taking no part in it. She should faint with terror seeing other men face the danger, dressed in the same costume as Juan.