Frequently a single corrida was not all. He had to fight bulls three or four days in succession, and when night came, exhausted from weariness and lack of sleep on account of his recent excitement, he gave up all social affairs and sat at the door of the hotel in his shirt-sleeves, enjoying the fresh air of the street. The "boys" of the cuadrilla lodged at the same inn and kept near the maestro, like a brotherhood in a cloister. Some of the most audacious would ask permission to take a walk along the illuminated streets and out to the fair grounds.
"Miuras to-morrow!" said the matador. "I know what those walks are. Thou wilt return at daybreak with two glasses too many and thou'lt not fail to have some kind of an affair to take thy strength. No; thou canst not go. When we get through thou mayest play."
And the work over, if there were a few days of liberty before the next corrida in some other city, the cuadrilla would put off the trip, and then the gay time would begin, far from the restraint of their families, with abundance of wine and women in company with enthusiastic devotees, who imagined this to be the everyday life of their idols.
The divers dates of the fiestas obliged the swordsman to take absurd journeys. He would leave one city to work in the other extreme of Spain, and four days later he would return, fighting bulls in a town near the first one. He almost spent the summer months, when corridas were most frequent, in the train, making a continual zigzag over all the railroads of the Peninsula, killing bulls in the plazas, and sleeping on the cars.
"If all my summer travel were arranged in a straight line," said Gallardo, "it would sure reach to the North Pole."
At the beginning of the season he started on his travels with enthusiasm, thinking of the multitude that talked of him throughout the whole year, impatiently awaiting his coming; he thought of the unforeseen events; of the adventures that feminine curiosity would frequently yield him; of the life from hotel to hotel, with its changes, its annoyances, its varied meals, that contrasted strongly with the placid existence in Seville and the days of mountain solitude at La Rinconada. But after a few weeks of this giddy life, in which he earned five thousand pesetas for each afternoon of work, Gallardo began to lament, like a child far from its family.
"Ah! My cool house in Seville! Poor Carmen who keeps it shining like a little silver cup! Ah! Mamita's cooking! So rich!"
He only forgot Seville on holiday nights, when he did not have to fight bulls the following day; when all the cuadrilla, surrounded by devotees anxious to give them a good impression of the city, gathered at a café flamenco where women and songs were all for the maestro.
When Gallardo went home to recuperate during the remainder of the year he felt the satisfaction of the mighty who, forgetting honors, give themselves up to the comforts of ordinary life.
He slept late, free from the tyranny of train schedules and unstirred by any emotion when he thought of bulls. Nothing to do this day, nor the next, nor the next! His travel ended at Sierpes Street, or the plaza of San Fernando. The family seemed changed, happier and in better health, having him safe at home for a few months. He went out with his hat on the back of his head, twirling his gold-headed cane and admiring the big brilliants on his fingers. In the vestibule some men were waiting for him,—sun-browned men with a sour, sweaty, stench, wearing dirty blouses and broad hats with ragged rims. Some were field laborers out on a tramp, who thought it quite natural on passing through Seville to obtain help from the famous matador whom they called Señor Juan. Others lived in the city, and thou-ed the bull-fighter, calling him Juaniyo.