The Blood of the Arena

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

He and the employee were undecided and ill humored in the presence of this woman with reddened eyes and sunken cheeks who stood planted in the courtyard uncertain what to do. The two men felt themselves drawn by the murmur of the crowd and the music that rose from the plaza. Must they stand there the whole afternoon and not see the bull-fight?

The employee had a brilliant inspiration.

If the lady wished to pass into the chapel—

The defiling of the cuadrillas was over. Some horsemen came trotting out of the door that gave access to the ring. They were picadores who were not on duty and were retiring from the arena to substitute their companions when their turn came. Hitched to some rings in the wall stood a row of six saddled horses, the first that must enter the plaza to supply those fallen. Behind them the lancers passed the time making evolutions with their steeds. A stable boy mounted a skittish wild mare and galloped her along the corral to tire her, and then turned her over to the piqueros.

The hacks, tortured by the flies, stamped their feet, pulling on the rings as if they divined the coming danger. The other horses trotted, urged on by the riders' spurs.

Carmen and her brother-in-law had to take refuge under the arcades, and finally the bull-fighter's wife accepted the invitation to pass into the chapel. It was a safe and tranquil place and there she could do something useful for her husband.

When she entered the sacred room with its atmosphere made dense by the respiration of the public that had witnessed the bull-fighters' prayers, Carmen gazed upon the poverty of the altar. Four lights were burning before the Virgin of the Dove, but this tribute seemed niggardly to her.

She opened her purse to give a duro to an employee. Could he not bring more tapers? The man scratched his head. Tapers? Tapers? He did not believe he could find any among the chattels belonging to the plaza. But he suddenly recalled to mind the sisters of a matador who brought candles whenever he fought bulls. Maybe they were not all gone, and there might be a few in some corner of the chapel. After a long search he found them. There were no candlesticks, but the employee, a man of resources, brought a couple of empty bottles, and sticking the candles into their necks, he lit them and placed them near the other lights.

Carmen had knelt and the two men took advantage of her immobility to rush to the plaza, eager to witness the first events of the corrida.

The woman remained lost in contemplation of the crude image reddened by the lights. She was not familiar with this Virgin, but she must be sweet and kind like the one in Seville to whom she had so often made supplication. Moreover, she was the Virgin of the bull-fighters, she heard their last prayers when danger near at hand gave sincere piety to those rough men. On that floor her husband had knelt many times. And this thought was enough to cause her to feel attracted to the image and to contemplate her with religious trust, as if she had known her since childhood.