The Blood of the Arena - Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (phonics reading books txt) 📗

of white clothing. But this one, Sebastián, this one! Imagine all the roses of the gardens of the Alcázar together. No, it is something better; imagine jasmine, honeysuckle, and perfume of vines like those that must grow in the garden of Paradise. But her sweet odors come from within, as if she did not put them on, as if they came from her very blood. And besides, she is not one of those who, once seen, are forever the same. With her there is always something yet to be desired; something one longs for and that doesn't come. In fine, Sebastián, I cannot explain myself well—but thou knowest not what a lady is; so preach not to me and shut thy beak."

Gallardo no longer received letters from Seville. Doña Sol was travelling in foreign lands. He saw her once when he fought at San Sebastián. The beautiful lady was at Biarritz and she came in company with some French women who wished to meet the bull-fighter. He saw her one afternoon. She went away and he had only vague knowledge of her during the summer through the few letters he received and through the news his manager communicated from chance words dropped by the Marquis of Moraima.

She was at elegant watering-places whose very names Gallardo heard for the first time, and they were of impossible pronunciation for him; then he heard that she was travelling in England; afterward that she had gone on to Germany to hear some operas sung in a wonderful theatre that only opened its doors a few weeks each year. Gallardo lost faith in ever seeing her again. She was a bird of passage, venturesome and restless, and he dared not hope that she would seek her nest in Seville again when winter returned. This possibility saddened him and revealed the power this woman had exercised over his body and his mind. Never to see her again? Why then expose his life and be celebrated? Of what use was the applause of the multitude?

His manager tried to soothe him. She would return; he was sure. She would return, if only for a year. Doña Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a practical woman, who knew how to look out for her property. She needed the Marquis' help to unravel the business tangles of her own fortune and that which her husband had left her, both diminished by a long and luxurious sojourn far from home.

Gallardo returned to Seville at the end of the summer. He still had a goodly number of autumn bull-fights, but he wished to take advantage of nearly a month of rest. His family was at the seashore at Sanlúcar, for the health of the little nephews, who needed the salt-water cure.

Gallardo was overcome with emotion when his manager announced one day that Doña Sol had just arrived, unexpected by any one. He went to see her immediately, but after a few words he felt intimidated by her frigid amiability and the expression of her eyes.

She gazed at him as if he were a stranger. He divined in her manner a certain surprise at the bull-fighter's rough exterior, at the difference between herself and this youth, a mere killer of beasts. He also divined the gulf that had opened between the two. She seemed to him a different woman; a great dame of another land and race.

They chatted pleasantly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and Gallardo lacked the courage to remind her of it, nor did he dare to make the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.

"Seville!" said Doña Sol. "Very pretty—very agreeable. But there are other places in the world. I tell you, Gallardo, that some day I am going to take my flight forever. I foresee that I am going to be very much bored here. It seems to me my Seville has changed."

She no longer thou-ed him. Several days passed before the bull-fighter dared to remind her of other times during his calls. He limited himself to contemplating her in silence, with his moist, adoring Moorish eyes.

"I am bored. I may leave any day," exclaimed the lady at every one of their interviews.

Once again the servant with the imposing air met the bull-fighter at the inner gate and told him the Señora had gone out when he knew for a certainty she was in the house.

Gallardo told her one afternoon about a short excursion he must take to his plantation at La Rinconada. He must look at some olive orchards his manager had bought during his absence to add to his estate; he must also acquaint himself with the progress of the work on the plantation.

The idea of accompanying the matador on this excursion occurred to Doña Sol and made her smile at its absurdity and daring. To go to that hacienda where Gallardo's family spent a part of the year! To invade with the scandalous audacity of irregularity and sin that tranquil atmosphere of domestic life where the poor youth lived with those of his own home! The very absurdity of the idea decided her. She would go; it would interest her to see La Rinconada.

Gallardo was afraid. He thought of the people on the plantation, of the gossips who would tell his family about this trip. But the look in Doña Sol's eyes overthrew his scruples. Who could tell! Maybe this trip would bring back the old situation.

He wished, however, to offer a final obstacle to this desire.

"And Plumitas? Remember about him; they say that he is around La Rinconada."

"Ah! Plumitas!" Doña Sol's countenance, clouded by ennui, seemed to clear by a sudden flash from within. "How charming! I would be delighted if you could present him."

Gallardo arranged the trip. He had expected to go alone, but Doña Sol's company obliged him to take an escort for fear of an unhappy adventure on the road. He sought Potaje, the picador. He was a rough fellow, and feared nothing in the world but his gypsy wife, who, when she grew tired of taking beatings, tried to bite him. No need to give explanations to him—only wine in abundance. Alcohol and the atrocious falls in the ring kept him in a perpetual state of stupidity, as if his head buzzed and prevented him from saying more than a few words and permitted him but a clouded vision of things in general.

Gallardo also ordered Nacional to go with them; one more, and that was discretion beyond all doubt.

The banderillero obeyed from force of habit but grumbled when he heard that Doña Sol was going with them.

"By the life of the blue dove! Must a father of a family see himself mixed up in these ugly affairs! What will Carmen and Seña' Angustias say about me if they find it out?"

When he found himself in the open country, placed beside Potaje on the seat of an automobile, in front of the matador and the great lady, his anger little by little vanished. He could not see her well, hidden as she was in a great blue veil that fell from her travelling cap and floated over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful. And such conversation! And such knowledge of things!

Before half the journey was over, Nacional, with his twenty-five years of marital fidelity, excused the weakness of the matador, and made vain efforts to explain his enthusiasm to himself.

"Whoever found himself in the same situation would do the same.

"Education! A fine thing, capable of giving respectability to even the greatest sins."

CHAPTER IX

BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT

LET him tell thee who he is—or else let the devil take him. Damn the luck! Can't a man sleep?"

Nacional heard this answer through the door of his master's room, and transmitted it to a peón belonging to the hacienda who stood waiting on the stairs.

"Let him tell thee who he is! Unless he does, the master won't get up."

It was eight o'clock. The banderillero peeped out of the window, following with his gaze the peón who ran along the road in front of the plantation until he came to the farther end of the wire fence that surrounded the estate. Near the entrance to this enclosure he saw a man on horseback,—so small in the distance, both man and horse seemed to have stepped out of a box of toys.

The laborer soon returned, after having talked with the horseman. Nacional, interested in these goings and comings, received him at the foot of the stairs.

"He says he must see the master," faltered the peón. "He looks like an ill-tempered fellow. He says he wants the master to come down at once because he's got news for him."

The banderillero hastened upstairs to pound on the master's door again, paying no attention to his protests. He must get up; it was late for the country and that man might bring an important message.

"I'm coming!" said Gallardo, gruffly, without rising from his bed.

Nacional peeped out again and saw that the horseman was advancing along the road toward the farmhouse.

The peón ran out with the answer. He, poor man, seemed nervous, and in his two dialogues with the banderillero stammered with an expression of fear and doubt as though not daring to reveal his thoughts. When he joined the man on horseback, he listened to him a few moments and then returned on a run toward the house, this time with even more precipitation. Nacional heard him come up the stairs with no abatement of speed, till he stood before him, trembling and pale.

"It's Plumitas, Señor Sebastián! He says he's Plumitas and that he must talk to the master. My heart told me that the minute I saw him."

Plumitas! The voice of the peón, in spite of his stammering and his panting with fatigue, seemed to pierce the walls and scatter through every room as he pronounced this name. The banderillero was struck dumb with surprise. The sound of oaths accompanied by the swish of clothing and the thud of a body that hastily flung itself out of bed were heard in the master's room. In the one Doña Sol occupied there was a sudden activity that seemed to respond to the tremendous news.

"But, damn him! What does that man want with me? Why does he intrude himself at La Rinconada? And especially just now!"

It was Gallardo who rushed madly out of his room, with only his trousers and jacket hurriedly thrown on over his underclothing. He ran past the banderillero, and threw himself down the stairs, followed by Nacional.

The rider was dismounting before the door. A herder was holding the reins of the mare and the other workmen formed a group a short distance away, contemplating the newcomer with curiosity and respect.

He was a man of medium stature, stocky rather than tall, full-faced, blonde, and with short strong limbs. He was dressed in a gray blouse trimmed with black braid, dark, well-worn breeches with a double thickness of cloth on the inside of the leg, and leathern leggings cracked by sun, rain, and mud. Under his blouse his girth was enlarged by the addition of a heavy girdle and a cartridge-belt, to which were added the bulkiness of a heavy revolver and a formidable knife. In his right hand he carried a repeating carbine. A hat which had once been white covered his head, its brim flapping and worn ragged by the inclement weather. A red handkerchief knotted around his neck was the gayest adornment of his person.

His countenance, broad and chub-cheeked, had the placidity of a full moon. His cheeks still revealed the fair skin through their heavy tan; the sharp points of a blonde beard, not shaven for many days, protruded, gleaming like old gold in the sunlight. His eyes were the only disquieting feature of his kindly face, which looked like that of a village sacristan; eyes small and triangular, sunken in bubbles of fat—narrow eyes, that reminded