Gallardo defended himself, laughing at this avalanche that pushed and shoved him, the hotel clerks being quite unable to defend him, so awed were they by the respect that popularity inspires. He searched in all his pockets till they were empty, distributing silver-pieces blindly among the greedy, outstretched hands.
"There's none left now. The coal's all burnt up! Let me alone, pesterers."
Pretending to be annoyed by this popularity which really flattered him, he opened a passage for himself by a push with his strong arms and escaped by the stairway, running up the steps with the agility of an athlete, while the servants, no longer restrained by his presence, swept and pushed the crowd toward the street.
Gallardo passed the room occupied by Garabato and saw his servant through the half-opened door bending over valises and boxes getting his costume ready for the bull-fight.
Finding himself alone in his room the pleasant excitement caused by the avalanche of his admirers instantly vanished. The unhappy moments of these bull-fighting days had come, the trepidation of the last hours before going to the plaza. Miura bulls and the public of Madrid! The danger which, when he faced it, seemed to intoxicate him and increase his boldness, caused him bitter anguish now in his solitude, and seemed to him something supernatural, awful, on account of its uncertainty.
He felt crushed, as if suddenly the fatigue of the hideous night before had fallen upon him. He had a desire to lie down and rest on the bed at the other end of the room, when again anxiety over what awaited him, doubtful and mysterious, drove away his drowsiness.
He strode restlessly up and down the room and lighted another Havana by the end of the one he had just consumed.
How would this season which he was about to open in Madrid end for him? What would his enemies say? How would his professional rivals succeed? He had killed many Miuras—well, they were bulls like all the others; but he thought of his comrades who had fallen in the ring, almost all of them victims of the animals of that stock. Accursed Miuras! It was for a good reason that he and other swordsmen made out their contracts for a thousand pesetas more when they had to fight animals of this herd.
He continued wandering about the room with nervous step. He stopped to contemplate stupidly well-known objects that were a part of his equipment; then he let himself fall into an easy chair as if attacked by sudden weakness. He looked at his watch repeatedly. It was not yet two o'clock. How the time crept!
He wished that, as a stimulant for his nerves, the hour for dressing and going to the ring would come. The people, the noise, the popular curiosity, the desire to show himself calm and happy in the presence of the enthusiastic populace, and above all the very nearness of danger, actual and personal, instantly effaced this anguish of isolation in which the swordsman, without the aid of external excitement, felt something akin to fear.