And Doña Sol remained pensive, recalling the poor rajah always shaking with cold in his absurd vestments amid the foggy light of London. In her imagination she beheld him there in his own country transfigured by the majesty of power and by the light of the sun, his coppery complexion, with the greenish reflexions of the tropical vegetation, taking on a tone of artistic bronze. She saw him mounted on his elephant on parade, with long golden hangings that swept the ground, escorted by warlike horsemen and slaves bearing censers with perfumes, his great turban crowned with white feathers set with precious stones, his bosom covered with breast-plates of diamonds, his waist bound by a belt of emeralds, from which hung a golden scimitar; she saw him surrounded by bayaderes with painted eyes and firm breasts, forests of lances, and, in the background, pagodas with multiple roofs one above another, with little bells that chimed mysterious symphonies at the slightest whisper of the breeze; palaces of more mystery; dense thickets in whose shadows leaped and growled ferocious multicolored animals. Ah, atmosphere! Seeing the poor rajah thus, proud as a god, beneath an arid sky of intense blue, and in the splendor of an ardent sun, it would never have occurred to her to present him with an overcoat. It was almost certain that she herself might have fallen into his arms giving herself up as a serf of love.
"You remind me of the rajah, friend Gallardo. There in Seville, in your native costume, with the lance over your shoulder, you were all right. You were a complement to the landscape. But here! Madrid has become very much Europeanized; it is a city like others. Native costumes are no longer worn. Manila shawls are seldom seen off the stage. Don't be offended, Gallardo; but I don't know why you remind me of the rajah."
She looked through the windows at the wet ground and the rainy sky, at the scattering flakes of snow, and the crowd that moved with accelerated step under the dripping umbrellas. Then she turned her gaze on the swordsman, stared strangely at the braid hanging from his head, at the way his hair was combed, at his hat, at all the details that revealed his profession, which contrasted with his elegant and modern costume.
The bull-fighter was—in Doña Sol's opinion—out of his element. Ah, this Madrid; rainy and dismal! Her friend who had come with the illusion of a Spain of eternal blue sky, was disappointed. She herself, seeing on the walk near the hotel the groups of young bull-fighters in gallant attitudes, inevitably thought of exotic animals brought from sunny countries to zoölogical gardens beneath a rainy sky in a gray light. There in Andalusia Gallardo was the hero, the spontaneous product of a cattle country. Here he seemed to her a comedian, with his shaven face and the stage manners of one accustomed to public homage; a comedian who instead of speaking dialogues with his equals awoke the tragic thrill in combat with wild beasts.
Ah! The seductive mirage of the lands of the sun! The deceitful intoxication of light and color! And she had been able to love that rough, uncouth fellow a few months, she had extolled the crudities of his ignorance, and she had even demanded that he should not abandon his habits, that he should smell of bulls and horses, so as not to dispel with perfumes the odors of wild animals that enveloped his person! Ah, atmosphere! To what mad deeds it drives one!
She remembered the danger in which she had stood of being killed by a bull's horns; then the breakfast with a bandit, to whom she had listened speechless with admiration and in the end had given a flower. What nonsense! And how far away it seemed now!
Nothing remained of this past which caused her to feel repentance for its absurdity except that lusty youth motionless before her with his supplicating eyes and his infantile effort to resurrect those days. Poor man! As if the madness could be repeated when one thinks calmly, and illusion, blind enchantress of life, has vanished!
"It is all over," said the lady. "The past must be forgotten, now that looking back it does not appear in the same colors. What would I not give to have the eyes I used to have! On returning to Spain I find it changed. You also are different. It even seemed to me the other day, seeing you in the plaza, that you were less daring—that the people were less enthusiastic."
She said this simply, without malice, but Gallardo imagined he divined in her voice a trace of mockery; he bowed his head and his cheeks reddened.
"Curse it!" Professional worries surged through his mind. Everything that happened was because he no longer got close to the bulls. She had said it plainly. He seemed to her a different man. If he became the Gallardo of former times perhaps she would receive him better. Women love none but the brave.