The Blood of the Arena

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The mantle, splendid, immense, with heavy gold embroidery that resembled the meshes of a net, hung behind the float, like the wide-spread tail of a gigantic peacock. Her glass eyes shone as if filled with tears of emotion in response to the acclamations of the faithful, and to this glitter was added the scintillation of the jewels that covered her body, forming an armor of gold and precious stones over the embroidered velvet. She seemed sprinkled with a shower of luminous drops, in which flamed all the colors of the rainbow. From her neck hung strings of pearls, chains of gold with dozens of rings linked together that scattered magic splendors as she moved. The tunic and the front of the mantle were hung with gold watches fastened on with pins, pendants of emeralds and diamonds, rings with enormous stones like luminous pebbles. All the devotees sent their jewels that they might light the most Holy Macarena on her journey. The women exhibited their hands divested of ornaments on this night of religious sacrifice, happy to have the Mother of God display jewels that were their pride. The public knew them from having seen them every year. That one which the Virgin displayed on her breast, hanging from a chain, belonged to Gallardo, the bull-fighter. But others shared the popular honors along with him. Feminine glances devoured rapturously two enormous pearls and a strand of rings. They belonged to a girl of the ward who had gone to Madrid two years before, and being a devotee of the Macarena, returned to see the feast with an old gentleman. The luck of that girl—!

Gallardo, with his face covered, and leaning on a staff, the emblem of authority, marched before the paso with the dignitaries of the brotherhood. Other hooded brothers carried long trumpets adorned with green bannerets with fringes of gold. They raised the mouthpiece to an aperture in the masks, and an ear-splitting blast, an agonizing sound, rent the silence. But this hair-raising roar awoke no echo of death in the hearts that beat around them.

Along the dark and solitary cross-streets came whiffs of springtime breezes laden with garden perfumes, the fragrance of orange blossoms, and the aroma of flowers in pots ranged behind grilles and balconies. The blue of the sky paled at the caress of the moon which rested on a downy bed of clouds, thrusting its face between two gables. The melancholy defile seemed to march against the current of Nature, losing its funereal gravity at each step. In vain the trumpets sounded lamentations of death, in vain the minstrels wept as they intoned the sacred verses, and in vain the grim executioners kept step with hangman's frown. The vernal night laughed, scattering its breath of perfumed life. No one dwelt on death.

Enthusiastic Macarenos surrounded the Virgin like a troop of revellers. Gardeners came from the suburbs with their dishevelled women who dragged a string of children by the hand, taking them on an excursion lasting until the dawn. Young fellows of the ward with new hats and with curls smoothed down over their ears flourished clubs with warlike fervor, as though some one were likely to display lack of respect for the beautiful Lady, so that the support of their arm would be necessary. All jostled together, crowding into the narrow streets between the enormous paso and the walls, but with their eyes fixed on those of the image, talking to her, hurling compliments to her beauty and miraculous power with the inconsistency produced by wine and their frivolous bird-like minds.

"Olé, la Macarena! The greatest Virgin in the world! She who excels all other Virgins!"

Every fifty steps the sacred platform was halted. There was no hurry. The journey was long. At many houses they demanded that the Virgin stop so that they could gaze on her at leisure. Every tavern keeper also asked for a pause at the door of his establishment, alleging his rights as a citizen of the ward. A man crossed the street directing his steps toward the hooded brethren with the staffs who walked in advance of the float.

"Hold! Let them stop! For here is the greatest singer in the world who wishes to sing a couplet to the Virgin."

"The greatest singer in the world," leaning against one friend, and handing his glass to another, advanced toward the image with shaking legs, and after clearing his throat delivered a torrent of hoarse sounds in which trills obliterated the clarity of the words. It could only be understood that he sang to the "Mother," the Mother of God, and as he uttered this word, his voice acquired additional tremors of emotion with that sensibility to popular poesy that finds its most sincere inspiration in maternal love.

Another and then another voice was heard, as if the minstrel had started a musical contest; as if the street were filled with invisible birds, some hoarse and rasping, others shrill, with a penetrating screech that suggested a red and swollen throat, ready to burst. Most of the singers kept hidden in the crowd, with the simplicity of devotion that does not crave to be seen in its manifestations; others were eager to exhibit themselves, planting themselves in the midst of the crowd before the holy Macarena.

When the songs ended the public burst into vulgar exclamations of enthusiasm, and again the Macarena, the beautiful, the only, was glorified, and wine circulated in glasses around the feet of the image; the most vehement threw their hats at her as if she were a real girl, a pretty girl, and it was not clear now whether it was the fervor of the faithful who sang to the Virgin, or a pagan orgy that accompanied her transit through the streets.