Carmen arose. Ah, she could bear no more! She would fall fainting if she remained in that gloomy place trembling at the echoes of pain. She thought she felt in her own bones the same torture that caused that unknown man to groan.
She went out into the courtyard. Blood on all sides; blood on the floor and around some casks where water mingled with the red fluid.
The picadores were retiring from the ring. The sign for the display of the banderillas had been given, and the riders came out on their bleeding horses. They dismounted, talking with animation of the incidents of the bull-fight. Carmen saw Potaje let his vigorous person down off his horse hurling a string of curses at the mono sabio who stupidly assisted him in his descent. He seemed benumbed by his hidden iron greaves and from the pain of several violent falls. He raised one hand to his back to ease himself with painful stretches, but he smiled, showing his yellow horse-like teeth.
"Have ye seen how well Juan does to-day?" he said to those who surrounded him. "To-day he surely is all right."
Seeing a solitary woman in the courtyard, and recognizing her, he showed no surprise.
"You here, Seña' Carmen? How good!"
He spoke tranquilly, as if he, in the stupor which wine and his own bestiality kept him, could not be surprised by anything in the world.
"Have you seen Juan?" he continued. "He laid down on the ground before the bull, under his very nose. Nobody else can do what that fellow does. Peep in and see him, for he is very fine to-day."
Some one called him from the door of the infirmary. His companion, the picador, wanted to speak to him before being taken to the hospital.
"Adio', Seña' Carmen. I must see what that poor fellow wants. A fall with a fracture, they say. He won't use the lance again this whole season."