Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

On the death of her mother, she became possessed of a very good fortune. She had married in Madrid a personage much older than herself who had as Ambassador, represented Spain at the principal Courts of Europe, a prospect which could not fail to be attractive to a woman anxious for splendour and novelty.

"How that woman has amused herself, Juan!" said the manager. "How many heads she has turned during the ten years she has travelled about Europe. She must be really a book on geography, with secret notes on every page. Certainly she must have a fine crop of memories about every capital in Europe.... And the poor Ambassador! He died, no doubt, from vexation, as there was nowhere left for him to go to. She flew very high, too. The good gentleman would be sent to represent us at some court or other, and before the year was out, the Queen or the Empress would be writing home to beg for the removal of the Ambassador and his seductive wife.... Oh! the crowned heads that gachi has turned!... Queens trembled at her arrival. Finally, the poor Ambassador, finding no place open to him except the American Republics—and as he was of good principles and a friend of kings—died. And don't imagine for a moment that she contented herself only with people living in royal palaces! if all that is told of her be true!... Everything she does is most extreme, everything or nothing. Sometimes fixing on the highest, sometimes on the lowest in the land. I have been told that in Russia she ran after one of those shaggy-haired fellows who throw bombs, who did not care much for her because she disturbed his plots, because she followed him everywhere, till at last his secret society strangled him. Afterwards she appears to have taken up with a painter in Paris, but possibly these may be exaggerations. However, it seems quite certain that she was great friends with some musician in Germany who writes operas. If you could only hear her play the piano! And when she sings! it is like one of the sopranos who come to San Fernando's theatre at Eastertide. And she not only sings in Italian, but in French, German, and English. Her uncle, the Marquis de Moraima, who, between ourselves, is just a little rough, says he even suspects she knows Latin!... What a woman, eh, Juanillo? What an interesting woman!"

Don José spoke of Doña Sol with admiration, thinking every act of her life extraordinary and original, those that were certain as well as those that were hazy.

"In Seville," continued he, "she leads an exemplary life, for which reason I think a great deal that has been said about her is untrue—the calumnies of certain people who found the grapes were sour. She appears to have fallen in love with Sevillian life, as though she had never seen it before! with our warm sunny climate, with our picturesque customs.... She has been made a member of the charitable brotherhood of the Cristo de Triana and spends a fortune on Manzanilla for the brothers. Some nights she fills her house with singers and dancers, who bring their families and even their most distant relations; they all fill themselves with olives, sausages and wine, and Doña Sol, seated in an arm-chair like a queen, spends hours asking for dance after dance. Her servants who have come with her, dressed in their liveries and as stiff and grave as lords, hand round trays of wine and sweets to these dancers, who pull their whiskers and throw the olive stones in their faces!... A most proper and amusing diversion!... Now, Doña Sol receives every morning an old gipsy called Lechuzo, who gives her lessons on the guitar...." and so Don José rambled on, explaining to the matador all Doña Sol's originalities.

Four days after Gallardo had seen her in the church of San Lorenzo, the manager came up to him in a café in the Calle de las Sierpes and said mysteriously:

"Gacho, you are the spoiled child of fortune! Who do you think has been talking to me about you?"

And putting his mouth close to the torero's ear, he murmured: "Doña Sol!"

She had been questioning him about "his matador" and had expressed a wish that he should be presented to her. He was such an original type! So thoroughly Spanish!