"When I go to the Bull Ring, as I do from time to time with a foreigner, I enjoy the polychromatic animated spectacle of the crowded amphitheatre, the theatric entrance of the fighters and the encounters with the first bull. The second diverts me less, at the third I begin to yawn, and when the fourth appears, I reach for the book or newspaper which I have forehandedly brought along in my pocket. And I suspect that half of the spectators feel very much as I do.
"A number of years ago a professor in one of the celebrated universities of the United States came to visit me at Madrid, and I took him, as is customary, to see a bull-fight.
"This learned gentleman was also a man of action, a Roosevelt of the professorial chair; he rode, he boxed, he was devoted to hunting big game as well as to the exploration of unknown lands. He watched intently every incident of the fight, knitting his blond eyebrows above his spectacles—for he was near-sighted—as he did so. Occasionally he muttered a word of approbation: 'Very good!' 'Truly interesting!' I saw, however, that some new, original idea was crystallizing in his mind.
"When we came out, he expressed himself:
"'Very interesting entertainment, but somewhat monotonous. Would it not be better to turn the six bulls loose simultaneously and then kill them all at once? It might shorten the exhibition, but how much more exciting! It would give those chaps an opportunity to show off their courage.'
"I looked upon that Yankee as upon a great sage. He had formulated definitely the vague dissatisfaction with the bull-fight which had lurked in my mind ever since, as a boy, I had suffered at the tiresome spectacle. Yes! Six bulls at one time!"
In the novel of Blasco Ibáñez, it is always six bulls at one time.
THE CABIN
[LA BARRACA]