The Blood of the Arena

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The farewell was, as on other occasions, disconcerting and disturbing to Gallardo. The women fled so as not to see him go, all except Carmen, who forced herself to keep serene, and accompanied him to the door; the astonishment and curiosity of his little nephews annoyed the bull-fighter, arrogant and manful now that the hour of danger had come.

"I should think they were taking me to the gallows! Well, see you later! Don't worry, nothing is going to happen."

And he stepped into his carriage, forcing his way among the neighbors and the curious grouped before his house, who wished good luck to Señor Juan.

The afternoons when the bull-fighter fought in Seville were agonizing for his family as well as for himself. They had not the same resignation as on other occasions when they had to wait patiently for nightfall and the arrival of the telegram. Here the danger was near at hand and this aroused anxiety for news and the desire to know the progress of the corrida every quarter of an hour.

The leather-worker, dressed like a gentleman, in a fine light woollen suit and a silky white felt hat, offered his services to the women in sending messages, although he was furious at the neglect of his illustrious brother-in-law who had not even offered him a seat in the coach! At the termination of each bull that Juan killed, he would send news of the event by one of the boys who swarmed around the plaza.

The corrida was a noisy success for Gallardo. As he entered the ring and heard the applause of the multitude, he felt that he had grown several inches taller. He knew the soil he trod; it was familiar; he felt it his own. The sand of the various arenas exercised a certain influence on his superstitious soul. He recollected the great plazas of Valencia and Barcelona with their whitish ground, the dark sand of the plazas of the north, and the reddish earth of the great ring of Madrid. The arena of Seville was different from the others—sand from the Guadalquivir, a deep yellow, as if it were pulverized paint. When the disembowelled horses shed their blood upon it, Gallardo thought of the colors of the national flag, that floated over the roof around the ring.

The diverse architecture of the plazas also influenced the bull-fighter's imagination, which was readily agitated by the phantasmagoria of uneasiness. There were rings of more or less recent construction, some in Roman style, others Moorish, which had the banality of new churches where all seems empty and colorless. The plaza of Seville was a taurine cathedral of memories familiar to many generations, with its façade recalling a past century—a time when the men wore the powdered wig—and its ochre ring, which the most stupendous heroes had trod. It had known the glorious inventors of difficult feats, the perfecters of the art, the heavy champions of the round school with its correct and dignified bull-fighting system, the agile, gay maestros of the Sevillian school with their plays and mobility that set the audiences wild—and there he, too, on that afternoon, intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the clamor, and by the sight of a white mantilla and a blue-clad figure leaning over the railing of a box, felt equal to the most heroic deeds.

Gallardo seemed to fill the ring with his agility and daring, anxious to outshine his companions, and eager that the applause should be for him alone. His admirers had never seen him so great. The manager, after each one of his brave deeds, arose and shouted, defying invisible enemies hidden in the masses on the seats: "Let's see who dares say a word! The greatest man in the world!"

The second bull Gallardo was to kill Nacional drew, with skilful cape-work, to the foot of the box where sat Doña Sol in blue gown and white mantilla, with the Marquis and his two daughters. Gallardo walked close to the barrier with sword and muleta in one hand, followed by the eyes of the multitude, and when he stood before the box, he looked up, taking off his cap. He was going to tender his bull to the niece of the Marquis of Moraima! Many smiled with a malicious expression. "Hurrah for the lucky boys!" He gave a half turn, throwing down his cap to end his speech, and awaited the bull which the peones were drawing over by the play of the cape. In a short time, managing so that the bull did not get away from this place, the matador accomplished his feat. He wished to kill under the very eyes of Doña Sol so that, at close range, she should see him defying danger. Each pass of his muleta was accompanied by acclamations of enthusiasm and shouts of fear. The horns passed close to his breast; it seemed impossible for him to escape the attacks of the bull without losing blood. Suddenly he squared himself, with the sword raised for attack, and before the audience could voice their opinions with shouts and counsel, he swiftly threw himself upon the brute and man and animal formed but a single body.

When the matador drew away and stood motionless, the bull ran with halting step, bellowing, with distended nostrils, his tongue hanging between his lips and the red hilt of the sword visible in his blood-stained neck. He fell a few steps away and the audience rose to its feet en masse as though it were a single body moved by a powerful spring; the outburst of applause and the fury of the acclamations broke out in a violent storm. There was not another brave man in the world equal to Gallardo! Could that youth ever once have felt fear?