Poor Folk in Spain Part 9

CHAPTER XII

MURCIA--BRAVO TORO

Along cool colonnades of raw-coloured brick, up a staircase arched with concrete, and out through a sort of concrete culvert which spouted humanity, we came into the huge round amphitheatre of the bullring.

Owing to Spanish dilatoriness, we were later than we had intended, and in consequence were unable to get seats within the coveted shadow which lay over half the great enclosure; but, thank goodness, the sky was mottled with clouds which tempered both the heat and the glare of the Spanish afternoon. We were in the cheapest seats, having disdained to go skywards into the boxes, for we had come to taste the full flavour of an average bullfight as a popular spectacle, and we wished it as pure as possible. So we had bought purple tickets for two pesetas and a white one for me at half price; at the same time repelling the persistence of a feminine hawker, who pressed upon us large flabby looking paper bags of mysterious content which we imagined to be some form of refreshment.

The seats of the bullring were of flat stone rising tier upon tier, and we chose our places low down to get a good view, yet as near as possible to the slowly creeping shadow; only one row of stone seats and two rows of chairs of iron lattice separated us from the arena itself. The chairs were empty, so I asked Luis if they were reserved for some special purpose. "No," he answered, "but the bull may leap out of the ring.

Those chairs would entangle him, but it is uncomfortable if you happen to be sitting there, so they are not very popular." As the edge of the arena was guarded by a palisade of stout planking about five feet high, through which were cut narrow gaps--bolt-holes--for the toreadors, and the seats were separated from this palisade by a pa.s.sage some six feet wide, the lowest seats being set some ten feet above the floor, I felt that the risk of finding an enraged bull in one's lap was rather remote.

The culverts spouted Spanish humanity: soldiers in greenish khaki; women in black, white or colours dominated by a very popular pink; peasants in blue blouses and sandals; bourgeoisie in straw hats and drill; youths in caps of exaggerated English cut. Immediately below us two small children, mothered by a third aged about eleven, all three exceedingly unkempt, rather dirty, and possibly verminous, took their seats, and, recognizing that I was a stranger, advised me in hoa.r.s.e whispers all through the progress of the spectacle. In spite of her obvious poverty the eldest girl wore a large tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb of elaborate pattern in a carefully arranged _coiffure_. Numberless children seemed to have attended the spectacle thus, as the small Londoners go to the cinema. At this moment the ring itself was full of them, some playing football, a game very popular--there is even a Spanish periodical called _Free-Kick_--others giving imitation exhibitions of bullfighting, more or less like that played by the children in the hotel. When the imitation bull, stabbed to death, was dragged around the ring, the real spectators cheered loudly. We wondered what the bull's mother would say about the state of his pants.

This was no Mantilla day, nor day of fiesta. It was just an ordinary Sunday afternoon diversion in this provincial town. We took our first dose of bullfight in this place for a reason. Essentially a popular sport should be judged as a sport of the people: not by its highest exponents, but by its average. An intelligent foreigner would not get the truest impression of what cricket means to England at Lord's or at the Oval; but on some village green at an inter-parochial contest.

The horrors of bullfighting began with a band, the age of the bandsmen varying between fourteen and seventy years. The band marched around the ring playing music as out of tune as the new age is with the old. The ring emptied of children, and two hors.e.m.e.n superbly mounted dashed across the arena to demand from the President the key of the bull-pen.

This was followed by a general parade of the toreros. Alas, for romance!

Their gilt was somewhat tarnished, most of their cloaks worn and faded; usually the only part of the costume which seemed to have retained its original brilliance was the coloured seat of the tight trousers, which I suppose comes in for very little wear and tear. The picadors with their nail-headed lances seemed veritable Don Quixotes on their more than Rosinante steeds: poor beasts doomed to the knackers anyhow. The procession ended with two cart-horses and a yoke destined to drag the slaughtered bulls from the ring.

There was a pause. Luis said in a low murmur:

"Doesn't your heart beat? Isn't this moment exciting?"

He spoke truly. Around the huge oval all eyes were concentrated on the red door of the bull-pen: the very air seemed rarefied and electric. For me, I think this was the most tense moment of the day: that moment before anything had happened. A bugle call cut the silence. The red door swung open and with a peculiar rolling gallop the bull dashed into the arena.

"Now," I thought, "this terrible bullfight, about which so much has been written, so much discussed, has indeed begun."

The bullfights of our imagination are spectacles of sun and colour--of madness stained with cruelty; the cruelty perhaps partly condoned by the fierceness of the bull, by a sort of wild frenzy of sport which seems in some part to excuse the murderous instinct of man.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The bull, a coloured rosette nailed to its shoulder, reached the centre of the ring, and then, for me, half the antic.i.p.ated interest of the fight vanished. We had expected a wild and furious gallop around the arena; a bull l.u.s.ting to kill or be killed; mad charges at the toreros, who would elude it with quick baffling pa.s.ses of the cloaks, wild dashes at the unfortunate horses, the riders of which would at least make some pretence of manoeuvering before the furious bull was allowed to fling horse and rider into the air. But no! The bull slowed up, halted and looked to this side and that. It was obviously perplexed. One could almost imagine a crease of puzzlement between its eyes. What was all this; where the sierras of its youth; into what strange place had it come? And now began a taunting of the unwilling bull. The toreros flapped their faded cloaks at it, but whenever the bull was tempted to charge the man ran for safety and crammed himself through one of the bolt-holes in the palisade--once a torero scampering for life reached an opening at the same instant as a companion. For a moment there was a flurry, but both men contrived to push through before the bull was able to reach them. The first impression of the fight was of a certain power and some magnificence on the part of the bull, and of degradation on the part of the toreros--one thought of the shorn Sampson taunted by the Philistines. In this contest the men seemed somehow ign.o.ble in comparison with the animals. The next act of the drama made this feeling no better. The picador was led out on his blindfolded and skeleton-like steed by a little man in a red shirt, who from behind the horse's head held out, like a policeman regulating the traffic, a protesting hand at the bull, as if to imply that the animal was not to charge till he was ready to bolt. For some while the bull did not take the invitation, though whenever he appeared likely to do so the small man dropped the reins and ran for the paling, from which, however, he took care never to be very far away. The picador himself is not in great danger, for his trousers are armour plated.

By this time the audience was shouting out: "No quiere!"[9] but at last the bull charged, the picador thrust his lance, and the bull with a great thrust of its head overturned both horse and man. Immediately the bull was surrounded by the toreros who with flapping cloaks distracted its attention. Man and horse were lifted up again.

Large numbers of Spaniards do not like bullfighting, but a great many Spaniards who do not in principle object to bullfighting do object to the horse-slaughter. One, cutting to the roots of the truth, said it was "not aesthetic." He was right. There should be a strong sense of the aesthetic in sport--it is a thing more subtle than mere "fair play," and when this sense of the aesthetic is ignored the sport becomes brutality.

This horse-slaughter more than oversteps the line of the aesthetic, so for us did the bolt-holes provided for the toreros. For us bullfighting would begin to be a serious sport if the men and the bull stood on the same conditions.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

One picador, who by means of his lance kept the bull off from his horse, received a round of well-earned applause. The bugle sounded once more and the picadors were led out of the ring. There followed another rather dull interval of cloak-flapping. One of the matadors, however, gave an exhibition of pa.s.ses which made the bull charge repeatedly within a foot or so of the man's body, during which the torero did not move his feet.

When the bull, baffled and panting with exhaustion at his fruitless tosses, paused, the torero went upon one knee before the animal. The spectators shrieked applause and flung their hats into the ring. But this exhibition was very different from the usual cloak-flapping followed by a scamper for the bolt-hole: nor, indeed, was it shown often.

A torero who had carried an exceedingly faded violet cloak, and who had been perhaps most hasty in his dashes for the safety gaps, now discarded his cloak, and waving a pair of pink banderillas stepped into the centre of the ring. Like a foreigner at cricket we naturally missed much of the subtlety, but it was obvious that there were certain conditions under which the banderillero would meet the bull and others under which he would not. When the toreador seemed to think the bull in a good position, he waved his banderillas and stamped his feet as though about to fence. But the bull did not want banderillas stuck into him. Again and again he declined the invitation while the populace howled "No quiere, no quiere!" Personally I should have sent the bull home and ordered another with more ginger in it. At last, exasperated, the bull charged, the banderillero ran towards it in a slightly circular path, planted his two sticks, each some thirty inches long, into the bull's neck, and, curving out more widely, avoided by a few inches the upward thrust of the bull's horns. This piece of work looked dangerous, and the pay of a banderillero amounts to between 3 and 4 an afternoon. I think that he earns his money. What surprised us was to see the torero who had appeared such a scamperer with the faded purple cloak performing most pluckily with the paper-covered sticks. I suppose it is the case of a good batsman and good bowler--the arts are not interchangeable.

The six banderillas having been placed, another interval of harrying the unfortunate animal with minor exasperations of cloak-flapping followed: but at last the espatero, the swordsman, and the matador prepared to give the death stroke. Here again in first-cla.s.s bullfighting probably the whole exhibition is one of supreme skill. We expected a certain number of showy pa.s.ses with the scarlet flag, the matador keeping the bull circling about him--"wearing the bull as a waist-belt," as the saying is in Spain. Then a pause, a sudden thrust with the sword--and, with a groan, the bull is dead. It was not so. The espatero walked about flapping the cloak, at which sometimes the bull did charge, but more often did not. Several times the espatero had to run into a bolt-hole.

The bull showed strong desires to go home: it went to the side of the ring and looked at the door from whence it had emerged, while more venturesome members of the audience leaned over the palisade and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h out a banderilla as a souvenir. The toreador chivied the bull round the ring, trying to get it face foremost. However, when he succeeded in this he did not seem satisfied, for though the people yelled: "Ahora! Ahora!"[10] the matador only flapped his cloak.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"He is rather a nervous espatero," said Luis, "so, when he does prepare to kill, look out. Sometimes the sword flies. Not very long ago it landed in the audience and killed a spectator." At last, however, the bull, tongue hanging out, foam dripping from its mouth, blood streaming from the lance and banderilla wounds in the shoulders, faced the matador with half lowered and sullen head. The matador, taking up the position of a man about to throw a javelin, aimed his sword, which was curiously curved in the blade, and with quick steps ran in, thrust, and side-stepped. The bull, taken by surprise, could not bring its weight into action rapidly enough, the upward tossing horns missed the man by inches: the bull rushed forward at another torero who had taken position in line to attract the animal's attention. The matador had made no master stroke, the sword stood eighteen inches out of the bull's shoulder. The bull showed no signs of death, so the matador went away to procure another sword. Finally the bull, stabbed by four swords, was worried to death rather than killed, after which the corpse was dragged triumphantly around the ring at the tail of the team of horses, while the spectators stood on the stone seats and cheered.

It may be that we English take our pleasures sadly, but at that moment it struck me that at an ordinary bullfight the Spaniard seems to take rather dull pleasures with ecstasy.

The second bull proved more lively, the second matador more expert, or more lucky than his confrere; but here also the show seemed to partake rather of the nature of what should properly be termed bull-baiting than bullfighting. This second bull provided the thrill of the day to the three small dirty children. With one thrust of its horn it killed a horse. The small boy (aged six or seven) turned to me with eyes sparkling with pleasure.

"Did you see that?" he exclaimed. "One thrust only."

After the death of this bull came the Interval.

"Look up the numbers printed on your tickets," said Luis.

Having found the papers, I raised my head and to my amazement saw, in the centre of the arena, a donkey, two young calves and a sewing-machine.

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What are those?"

"They are the prizes of the tombola," explained Luis; "you or the Senor may win one."

The lots were drawn out of a large hat-box, and the numbers displayed on a blackboard. The donkey fell to a small boy, the calves to a peasant.

But for some while the sewing-machine, forlorn and incongruous, stood in the centre of the bloodthirsty arena awaiting a claimant. Attention was finally concentrated upon a point high up amongst the cheap seats, to the right of the President's box. Shouting, persuasion, hand-clapping and arm-waving ensued, and at last the crowd squeezed out a small, dark woman, blushing and giggling behind her fan, accompanied by husband, husband's friend and six-year-old son. The sewing-machine was escorted out of the same door through which the dead bulls had been dragged.

Then the bullfight began again. The third bull, a l.u.s.ty black, was the most willing of all. He did charge, he leapt high in his endeavours to kill those phantom cloaks. After all the necessary banderillas had been placed, there followed an incident. A boy of about sixteen years leapt the barrier and ran across the ring, hastily as he ran unwrapping something from a covering of newspaper. There was a sudden hum of excited voices from the spectators.

"Ei!" cried Luis. "An amateur!"

The boy reached the President's box, the unwrapped objects being a pair of dirty banderillas. Bowing to the President he craved permission to plant his banderillas in the bull. But, alas for youthful aspirations, permission was not given. The boy clambered sadly over the palisade to hide himself in the audience.

Unfortunately this bull, the bravest of the four, fell to the lot of the nervous matador. Death was a very lengthy operation, during the progress of which the bull knocked down the bullfighter. For a moment we wondered if the bull were going to take its revenge, but flapping cloaks instantly distracted it. Meanwhile, between the forelegs of the bull the matador lay very still, shielding his head with his arms. The nervous matador, however, went on with his task, using three swords before it was completed.

The matador of the fourth bull made an exceedingly bad thrust. The populace howled insults at him, flinging at the same time those paper bags which we had seen on sale near the ticket-office. They contained no refreshment, nor material for bombarding unsuccessful matadors, but were stuffed with horsehair to soften the stone seats. By this time we wished we had inquired more about them, for the stone had proved anything but soft. The fourth bull dead, the bullfight was over.

"Come and see the toreros," said Luis.

So with the outflowing press we repa.s.sed into the culvert, down the stairs and along the corridors of brick, till we reached a window or grille, by staring through which we could see the "heroes of Spain"

clambering into an ordinary station bus, in which they sat, stiff, cramped, dignified and unsmiling, conscious of their importance.

We returned with the returning crowds along the roads deep in dust, back to the centre of the town where there were cooling drinks and seats softer than those stone benches. While we were sitting thus, revelling in varied positions and summing up our first impressions, a large box cart of lattice work pa.s.sed by. Within the cart were hung great joints of meat which swung to and fro as the cart b.u.mped over the uneven road.

"There," said Luis, "go the bulls. They will be sold to-morrow in the market. The meat is cheap because it is rather tough."

This incident, because it seemed to contain a note of irony, because it had in it something sardonic and something callous, seemed to us a fitting termination to the spectacle which we had witnessed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: "He doesn't want to fight."]

[Footnote 10: "Now! Now!"]