The Blood of the Arena - Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (phonics reading books txt) 📗
- Author: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
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He took off his cap before the president's box to offer his bull. Olé! Olé! No one heard a word, but all were wild with enthusiasm. He must have said very fine things. The applause accompanied him when he turned toward the bull, and hushed in expectant silence when he stood near the wild beast. He extended the muleta, standing planted before the creature, but at some distance, not as on former occasions, when he had fired the audience by thrusting the red rag almost into the animal's eyes. In the silence of the plaza there was a movement of surprise—but no one spoke. Gallardo stamped the ground several times to incite the animal, and at last the bull attacked mildly, barely passing beneath the muleta, for the bull-fighter hurriedly moved aside with shameless precipitation. The people looked at one another in surprise. What was that?
The matador saw Nacional at his side and not far off another peón of the cuadrilla, but he did not shout, "Stand aside, everybody!" On the great tiers of seats a murmur arose, the noise of vehement conversation. Gallardo's friends thought it well to explain in the name of their idol.
"He is not wholly recovered yet. He ought not to fight. That leg—don't you see it?"
The two lackeys' capes assisted the swordsman in his pases. The animal moved in confusion between the red cloths and no sooner had he attacked the muleta than he noticed the cape-work of another bull-fighter, distracting his attention from the swordsman. Gallardo, as if eager to get out of the situation quickly, squared himself with his sword held high, and threw himself upon the bull.
A murmur of stupefaction followed the stroke. The sword was plunged in less than a third of its length, and hung vibrating, ready to fall out of the neck. Gallardo had jumped back from the horns, without burying his sword down to the hilt as he used to do.
"But it is well placed!" shouted his partisans, pointing to the sword, and they applauded clamorously to make up in noise for lack of numbers.
The "intelligent" smiled with pity. That boy was going to lose the only notable thing he had—valor, daring. They had seen him bend his arm instinctively at the moment of walking up to the bull with the sword; they had seen him turn away his face with that movement of terror that impels men to close their eyes to hide a danger.
The sword rolled along the ground and Gallardo, taking another, turned upon the bull again accompanied by his peones. Nacional's cape was ever ready to be spread out before him, to distract the wild beast; besides, the bellowing of the banderillero confused the bull and made him turn whenever he drew near to Gallardo.
Another thrust of the same kind, more than half of the steel blade remaining in sight.
"He doesn't get close!" they began to protest on the tiers of seats. "He's afraid of the horns!"
Gallardo extended his arms before the bull, his body making the figure of the cross, as if giving the audience behind him to understand that the animal already had enough with that thrust and would fall at any moment. But the wild beast remained standing, shaking his head from side to side.
Nacional, exciting him with the rag, made him run, taking advantage of every opportunity to beat him on the neck lustily, with all the force of his arm. The audience, divining his intentions, began to protest. He was making the animal run so that the motion would work the sword in deeper. His heavy blows with his cape were to drive in the sword. They called him a thief; they alluded to his mother with ugly words, impugning the legitimacy of his birth; menacing clubs waved above the "bleachers" in the sun; oranges and bottles began to fly into the arena, but he acted as if deaf and blind to this shower of insults and projectiles, and kept on chasing the bull with the satisfaction of one who fulfils his duty and saves a friend.
The animal moved in confusion between the red cloths drawing him far away from the swordsman.
Suddenly a stream of blood gushed from the beast's mouth, and he doubled up his forelegs and knelt motionless but with his head high, ready to get up and attack. The puntillero came up eager to finish him and get the maestro out of his embarrassing position. Nacional helped him, leaning cunningly against the sword and driving it in up to the hilt. The people in the sun, who saw this manœuvre, rose to their feet with angry protest.
"Thief! Assassin!"
They protested in the name of the poor bull, as though he were not destined to die at all hazards; they threatened Nacional with their fists, as though they had witnessed a crime, and the banderillero, with bowed head, finally took refuge behind the barrier. Gallardo, meanwhile, walked toward the president's box to salute him, and his undaunted admirers accompanied him with a din of applause.
"He's had bad luck," they said with ardent faith, refusing to be undeceived. "But the sword-thrusts, how well aimed! No one can dispute that."
Gallardo went and stood an instant before the seats where sat his most fervent partisans, and leaned against the barrier, making his explanations. The bull was bad; it was impossible to make a good job of him. His enthusiasts, Don José at their head, assented to these excuses, which were the same that they themselves had invented.
During a great part of the bull-fight Gallardo remained on the vaulting wall of the barrera. Such explanations might suffice for his partisans, but he felt a cruel doubt, a lack of self-confidence, the like of which he had never known before. The bulls seemed bigger, as if possessed of double life, giving them greater resistance against death. They used to fall beneath his sword with such miraculous ease. No, they had let the worst of the herd out for him to disconcert him. An intrigue of his enemies! Another suspicion dwelt confusedly in the obscure depths of his mind, but he did not wish to consider it close; he had no interest in extracting it from its mysterious shade. His arm seemed shorter the moment he held it before him with the sword. It used to reach the wild beast's neck with the swiftness of a lightning flash; now the distance seemed interminable, a terrifying void which he knew not how to bridge. His legs also seemed to be other and different, to live apart, with a will of their own, independent of the rest of his body. In vain he ordered them to remain quiet and firm as before. They did not obey. They seemed to have eyes, to see the danger, to spring with unwonted lightness, without the self-control to stand still when they felt the vibrations of the air stirred by the rush of the wild beast.
In the blindness of his rage at his own sudden weakness Gallardo blamed the public for his mortification. What did these people want?—that he should let himself be killed to give them pleasure? Signs enough of mad audacity he bore on his body. He did not need to prove his courage. That he was alive was due to a miracle, thanks to celestial intervention, to God's goodness, and to his mother's and his poor little wife's prayers. He had seen the dry face of Death as few see it, and he knew the worth of life better than any other.
"Perhaps you think you're going to take my scalp!" he thought, while he contemplated the multitude.
He would fight bulls in future as did many of his friends, some days he would do it well, others ill. Bull-fighting was nothing but a trade, and once the highest places were gained the important thing was to live and keep oneself out of danger as best one could. He was not going to let himself be caught merely for the pleasure of having the people give tongue to his courage.
When the moment came for killing his second bull, these thoughts inspired a quiet courage within him. No animal should finish him! He would do all he could without placing himself within reach of the horns. As he strode up to the wild beast he wore the same arrogant mien as on his great afternoons. "Stand aside, everybody!"
The crowd stirred with a murmur of satisfaction. He had said, "Stand aside, everybody!" He was going to do some of his greatest feats. But what the public expected did not take place, nor did Nacional cease walking behind him, his cape over his arm, divining, with the cunning of an old peón accustomed to bull-fighters' artful tricks, the theatrical falseness of his master's command. Gallardo held the rag some distance away from the bull and began to make pases with visible caution, each time remaining at a good distance from the wild beast and aided always by Sebastián's cape.
As he stood an instant with his muleta held low the bull made a movement as if to charge, but did not stir. The swordsman, excessively alert, was deceived by this movement and sprang backward, fleeing from the animal that had not attacked him. This needless retreat placed him in a ridiculous position and part of the audience laughed, while others uttered exclamations of surprise. Some hisses were heard.
"Ouch, he'll catch thee!" shouted an ironic voice.
"Sarasa!" groaned another with effeminate intonation.
Gallardo reddened with fury. This to him! And in the plaza of Seville! He felt the bold heart-throb of earlier days and a mad desire to fall blindly upon the bull and to let happen whatever God willed. But his body refused to obey him! His arm seemed to think; his legs saw the danger, mocking the demands of his will with their rebellion! Yet the audience, resenting the insult, came to his aid and imposed silence. Treat a man thus who was convalescing from a serious injury! This was unworthy the plaza of Seville! Let it be seen if there were such a thing as decency!
Gallardo made the most of this sympathetic compassion, to extricate himself from the difficulty. Walking sideways beside the bull, he stabbed him with a sidelong treacherous plunge. The animal fell like a slaughter-house beast, a stream of blood gushing out of his mouth. Some applauded without knowing why, others hissed, and the great mass remained silent.
"They have let insidious dogs out to him!" clamored the manager from his seat, although the corrida was supplied with bulls from the Marquis' own herd. "Why, those are not bulls! We shall see what he will do the next time, when he has truly noble beasts."
Gallardo noted the silence of the crowd as he left the plaza. The groups near him passed without a greeting, without one of those acclamations with which they used to receive him on happier afternoons. The miserable gang that stays outside the plaza awaiting news, and before the finish of the corrida knows all its incidents, did not even follow the carriage.
Gallardo tasted the bitterness of defeat for the first time. Even his banderilleros rode frowning and silent like soldiers in retreat. But when he reached home and felt around his neck his mother's arms, Carmen's, and even his sister's, and his little nephews' caresses as they hugged his legs, he felt his dejection vanish. Curse it! The important thing
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