Virgin Spain

by Waldo David Frank

Often the bull is put into a meditative mood. He stands, panting in the center of the arena. Blood drips from his mouth. His horns are carmine and the laced banderillas dance on the scruff of his shoulder, biting, nagging. He wants to understand what his life has become. The fields of Andalusia—the good grass, the warm care—have been wiped out in this blare of terror. That background of pleasaunce merely serves to sharp the tense present—this delirium of men and sun. A banderillero dances up. The bull faces him, asking a question. But the man will not tell. His smile is false; that swing of his cape is treachery. There is nothing to do but plunge—whatever it means. The cape of red and blue folds over the eyes of the bull and vanishes like a cloud: a dart bites his flesh. The crowd roars. The good life behind and the peace beyond are mist: life is this glare and this roar and this goad of steel.

The second act is over: the bull is chastened. He has been cleansed for the tragedy, after his brief triumph. Once again the bugle: the torero to whose lot this bull has fallen, selects his slender sword and his red capa. He steps forward for the ultimate tragic scene.

Toreros are of many kinds. This one is called Belmonte and he is one of two great espadas of recent years in Spain. He is a small man, smaller than the average and more swarthy. His body moves rhythmic and slight into the hard glitter of the sand.

The elemental glare of Spanish sunlight makes that body, striding so quiet toward the bull, frail and helpless. Could this man run away, as do so many? could he, if need be, vault the high barrier to safety just as the bull splintered the wood beneath him? The head is heavy. The nose is large and sharp; the mouth is wide; the lower jaw thrust out. But the brow is sensitive and smooth. Close by, this is the face of a neurotic. The arena’s flame bakes it into a brooding gloom above the body so ironically decked in gold and silk.

Belmonte in this instant has already awakened in the crowd the troubling emotion of pity mixed with fear. He salutes the bull and spreads his red mantle (the capa) across the fragile sword. He steps in close; and while the arena hardens into silence, he lifts the mantle toward the eyes of the brute.

Within an instant, breathless save for the breath of the bull, something goes forth from Belmonte to the beast and marries them. The bull is the enemy, and they are joined more close, more terribly than love. He plunges. Belmonte, motionless, swings the mantle to his side and the bull, as if attached to it, grazes the frail body. The mantle lifts. The bull lifts and turns, as if ligated by the mantle to Belmonte’s will. The cloth thrusts to the other side. The bull along. Back and forth they go, in rigorous dance. The torero’s body does not break from its repose. He is as cool as sculpture; he is as fluid as music. The bloody beast is attuned by a will, hard and subtle as Belmonte’s sword. His clumsy movements are molded into grace: his rage is refined into these exquisite feints. He, too, like the torero, leaves the plane of nature, and becomes a symbol.

As the torero stepped out to the sand, his rôle was god-like. His minions had played with the great innocent victim: fed him victory and blood: taunted him: taught him. Now he, to enact the ultimate rite of life ... the ultimate gift of the gods ... the only gift which they give unstintingly ... death.

But this dance has transfigured the torero. Meeting the brute upon the plane of danger, he becomes a man. Those hypnotized horns graze human flesh: where they touch they rend. That gold-lined body is a sheath, holding the blood of a man. The bull could plunge through it ... plunging so near, so rhythmically near ... as if it were indeed the mist and dream of mortal life.

And now another change in the beauty of their locked encounter. The man becomes the woman. This dance of human will and brutish power is the dance of death no longer. It is the dance of life. It is a searching symbol of the sexual act. The bull is male; the exquisite torero, stirring and unstirred, with hidden ecstasy controlling the plunges of the bull, is female.

The crowd acts its part. The little man is but a gleam of fire, the bull but a tongue of dionysian act within this dark flame of ten thousand souls. From them come dream and desire and memory of sense: concentrate upon this spot of drama: merge with it and marry it to themselves. At every pass of the bull from side to side of Belmonte, the crowd is released in a terrific roar. So silent the dance of the two coupled dancers: so vast the response of the crowd. Now, Belmonte kneels and his mantle rhythmically wipes the furious bloody head, making the plunge of horns diagonal athwart the torero’s breast. Verónica is the name of this classic gesture. And the allusion is to the handkerchief of the Saint, which smoothed the sweat from the forehead of the Christ. The ancient orgy of Dionysius and Priapus is tinged with Christian pity. The commingled symbolisms of many Spains meet in the dance: become abstracted and restrained. The whole is the silent balance of the wills of Spain.