His eyes travelled complaisantly over his own person, admiring his well-cut suit, the cap which he usually wore about the hotel now thrown on a chair close by, the fine gold chain which crossed the upper part of his waistcoat from pocket to pocket, the pearl in his cravat, which seemed to light up the swarthy colour of his face with its milky light, and his Russia leather shoes, which showed between the instep and the turned-up trouser openwork embroidered silk socks, like the stockings of a cocotte.
An atmosphere of English scents, sweet and vague, but used in profusion, emanated from his clothes, and from the black, glossy waves of hair which he wore curled on his temples, and he assumed a swaggering air before this feminine curiosity. For a torero he was not bad. He felt satisfied with his appearance. Where would you find a man more distinguished or more attractive to women?
But suddenly his preoccupation reappeared, the fire of his eyes was quenched, his chin again sank on his hand, and he puffed hard at his cigar.
His gaze lost itself in a cloud of smoke. He thought with impatience of the twilight hours, longing for them to come as soon as possible,—of his return from the bull-fight, hot and tired, but with the relief of danger overcome, his appetites awakened, a wild desire for pleasure, and the certainty of a few days of safety and rest. If God still protected him as He had done so many times before, he would dine with the appetite of his former days of want, he would drink his fill too, and would then go in search of a girl who was singing in a music-hall, whom he had seen during one of his journeys, without, however, having been able to follow up the acquaintance. In this life of perpetual movement, rushing from one end of the Peninsula to the other, he never had time for anything.
Several enthusiastic friends who, before going to breakfast in their own houses, wished to see the "diestro,"[4] had by this time entered the dining-room. They were old amateurs of the bull-ring, anxious to form a small coterie and to have an idol. They had made the young Gallardo "their own matador," giving him sage advice, and recalling at every turn their old adoration for "Lagartijo" or "Frascuelo."[5] They spoke to the "espada" as "tu," with patronising familiarity and he, when he answered them, placed the respectful "don" before their names, with that traditional separation of classes which exists between even a torero risen from a social substratum and his admirers.
These people joined to their enthusiasm their memories of past times, in order to impress the young diestro with the superiority of their years and experience. They spoke of the "old Plaza" of Madrid, where only "true" toreros and "true" bulls were known, and drawing nearer to the present times, they trembled with excitement as they remembered the "Negro."[6] That "Negro" was Frascuelo.
If you could only have seen him!... But probably you and those of your day were still at the breast or were not yet born.
Other enthusiasts kept coming into the dining-room, men of wretched appearance and hungry faces, obscure reporters of papers only known to the bull-fighters, whom they honoured with their praise or censure: people of problematic profession who appeared as soon as the news of Gallardo's arrival got about, besieging him with flatteries and requests for tickets. The general enthusiasm permitted them to mix with the other gentlemen, rich merchants and public functionaries, who discussed bull-fighting affairs with them hotly without being troubled by their beggarly appearance.
All of them, on seeing the espada,[7] embraced him or clasped his hand, to a running accompaniment of questions and exclamations:
"Juanillo!... How is Carmen?"