The Blood of the Arena Part 11

When Don Jose, Gallardo's business manager, and other friends of the master, jokingly disputed his doctrines at those after-dinner gatherings, making extravagant objections, poor Nacional was in suspense, scratching his forehead from perplexity.

"You are gentlemen and have studied and I don't know how to read or write. That is why we of the lower cla.s.s are like sheep. But if only Don Joselito were here! By the life of the blue dove! If you could hear him when he lets loose and talks like an angel!"

To fortify his faith, somewhat weakened by the a.s.saults of the jokers, he would go the following day to see Don Joselito, who seemed to luxuriate in bitterness, as a descendant of the persecuted chosen people, and look over what Joselito called his museum of horrors. The Hebrew, returned to the native land of his forefathers, was collecting relics of the Inquisition in a room of the school, with the vengeful accuracy of a prisoner who might reconstruct bone by bone the skeleton of his jailor. In a bookcase stood rows of parchment tomes--decrees of sentences p.r.o.nounced by the Inquisition and catechisms for interrogating the offender undergoing torture. On one wall hung a white banner with the dreaded green cross. In the corners were heaped instruments of torture--frightful scourges and fiendish devices for cleaving, for stripping and tearing human flesh, that Don Joselito found in the shops of the curio-dealers and catalogued as ancient belongings of the Holy Office. Nacional's kind and simple soul, easily roused to anger, rose in rebellion at the sight of these rusty irons and green crosses.

"Man alive! And yet there are those that say--! By the life of the dove!

I would like to see some folks here!"

Often in summer, when the _cuadrilla_ was going from one province to another and Gallardo went into the second cla.s.s carriage in which "the boys" were travelling, some rural priest or pair of friars would get on board. The _banderilleros_ would nudge each other with their elbows and wink one eye looking at Nacional, who seemed even more grave and solemn in the presence of the enemy. The _picadores_, Potaje and Tragabuches, l.u.s.ty aggressive fellows, lovers of riots and fights who felt a decided aversion to the ecclesiastical dress, urged him on in a loud voice.

"There's thy chance! Go at him for the good cause! Lodge one of thy yarns in the nape of his neck."

The _maestro_, with all his authority as chief of _cuadrilla_, against which none may parley nor argue, rolled his eyes, and looked at Nacional, who maintained a silent obedience. But stronger than duty was the impulse of his simple soul to convert, and an insignificant word was enough to open a discussion with the travellers, to try to convince them of the truth; and the truth was for him a kind of confused and disordered remnant of arguments learned from Don Joselito.

His comrades looked at each other astonished at the wisdom of their companion, well pleased that one of them should face professional people and put them in a tight place, for they were almost invariably priests of little learning. And the holy men, astounded at Nacional's confused reasoning and the smiles of the other bull-fighters, finally resorted to an extreme measure. Did men who continually exposed their lives to peril take no thought of G.o.d and believe in such things as he said? At this very moment how their wives and mothers must be praying for them!

The men of the _cuadrilla_ grew serious, thinking with timorous gravity of the scapularies and medallions feminine hands had sewed to their fighting garments before they left Seville. The _matador_, his sleeping superst.i.tion aroused, was angry with Nacional, as though in this lack of piety he foresaw danger to his life.

"Keep still and don't talk any more of your crudities. Pardon, Senores!

He is a good man but his head has been turned by so many lies. Shut up and don't give me any impertinence. d.a.m.n it all!"

And Gallardo, to tranquillize these gentlemen whom he believed to be trustees of the future, overwhelmed the _banderillero_ with threats and curses.

Nacional took refuge in disdainful silence. All ignorance and superst.i.tion! All from lack of knowing how to read and write! And firm in his beliefs, with the simplicity of a man who possesses only two or three ideas and will not let go of them, he took up the discussion again in a few hours--paying no heed to the anger of the _matador_.

He carried his impiety even into the midst of the ring, among _peones_ and pikemen who, after having said a prayer in the chapel of the plaza, went into the arena with the hope that the sacred emblems sewed to their clothing would deliver them from danger.

When the time came to stick the barbs into some enormous bull of great weight, thick neck, and deep black color, Nacional stood up before him with his arms extended and the barbs in his hands, shouting insults at him:

"Come on, you old priest!"

The "priest" dashed forward furiously, and as he approached, Nacional lodged the _banderillas_ in the nape of his neck with all his strength, saying in a loud voice, as if he had gained a victory:

"For the clergy!"

Gallardo ended by laughing at Nacional's extravagances.

"Thou makest me ridiculous. Our _cuadrilla_ will be branded as a herd of heretics. Thou knowest that some audiences don't like that. The bull-fighter should only fight bulls."

Nevertheless, he loved his _banderillero_, mindful of his attachment which had sometimes risen to the point of sacrifice. Nacional cared not if he were hissed when he lodged the _banderillas_ carelessly in dangerous bulls as a result of his desire to get through quickly. He cared nothing for glory and only fought bulls for his wage. But the moment Gallardo walked sword in hand toward a treacherous bull the _banderillero_ kept near him, ready to aid him with his heavy cape and his strong arm which had humbled the necks of so many wild beasts. Twice when Gallardo rolled on the sand, nearly caught by the dagger-like horns, Nacional threw himself upon the animal forgetting his wife, his children, his little tavern, everything, ready to die to save his _maestro_. He was received in Gallardo's dining-room in the evenings, therefore, as though he were a member of the family.

Gallardo and Don Jose, who sat across the table smoking, the gla.s.s of cognac within reach of the hand, liked to start Nacional to talking so as to laugh at his ideas, and they teased him by insulting Don Joselito--a liar who turned the heads of the ignorant!

The _banderillero_ took the jokes of the swordsman and his manager calmly. Doubt Don Joselito? Such an absurdity could not move him--no more than if they should attack his other idol, Gallardo, telling him he did not know how to kill a bull.

But when the leather-worker, who inspired him with an irresistible aversion, began to joke him he lost composure. Who was that hungry fellow who lived by hanging onto his master, to dare to dispute him!

And losing self-command, forgetting the presence of the master's wife and mother and of Encarnacion, who, imitating her husband, curled her be-whiskered lip and looked scornfully at the _banderillero_, he rushed down grade into an exposition of his views with the same fervor with which he discoursed in the committee. For lack of better arguments he overwhelmed the ideas of the jokers with insults.

"The Bible? _Liquid!_ That nonsense about creation of the world in six days? _Liquid!_ That about Adam and Eve? _Liquid_, also! All lies and superst.i.tion."

And the word _liquid_, applied to whatever he believed false or insignificant, fell from his lips as a strong expression of scorn. "That about Adam and Eve" was for him a subject of sarcasm. How could all human beings be descendants from one pair only?

"My name is Sebastian Venegas; and thou, Juaniyo, thy name is Gallardo; and you, Don Jose, have your surname; and every one has his own, only those of the parents being alike. If we were all grandchildren of Adam, and Adam, for example, was named Perez, we would all have Perez for a surname. Is that clear? But every one of us has his own because there were many Adams and what the priests tell is all _liquid!_ Superst.i.tion and ignorance! We lack education and they deceive us; I think I explain myself."

Gallardo, throwing himself back with laughter, saluted his _banderillero_, imitating the bellowing of a bull. The business manager, with Andalusian gravity, offered him his hand, congratulating him.

"Shake, old boy! Thou hast done well! Not even Castelar could have done better!"

Senora Angustias was indignant at hearing such things in her house, horrified with the terror of an old woman who sees the end of her existence drawing near.

"Shut up, Sebastian; shut thy big, wicked mouth, lost soul, or into the street thou goest! Thou shalt not say those things here, thou devil! If I did not know thee--If I did not know that thou art a good man--"

Finally she became reconciled to the _banderillero_, remembering how much he loved her Juan and what he had done for him in moments of danger. Moreover, it gave her and Carmen great ease of mind to know that this serious man of decent habits worked in the _cuadrilla_ by the side of the other "boys" and of the _matador_ himself, who, when he was alone, was excessively gay in disposition and let himself be carried away by the desire to be admired by women.

The enemy of the clergy and of Adam and Eve guarded a secret of his _maestro_, however, that made him reserved and grave when he saw him at home with his mother and Senora Carmen. If these women knew what _he_ knew!

In spite of the respect which every _banderillero_ should show his _matador_ Nacional had dared one day to talk to Gallardo with rough frankness, relying on his years and on their old friendship.

"Be careful, Juaniyo, for everybody in Seville knows the whole story!

They talk of nothing else and the news is going to reach your house and there'll be such a riot it'll set fire to the hair of G.o.d himself--Don't forget about that affair with the singing girl; and that was nothing!

This creature is more forceful and more dangerous."

"But what creature is that? And what riots are those thou art talking about?"

"Who can it be? Dona Sol; that great lady who makes so much talk. The niece of the Marquis of Moraima, the cattle-breeder."

And as the swordsman was smiling and silent, flattered by Nacional's exact information, the latter continued with the air of a preacher proclaiming the vanities of this world, "The married man should above all things seek the tranquillity of his house. Women! _Liquid!_ They are all alike and it is nonsense to embitter one's life jumping from one to another. I am a married man and in the twenty-four years I have lived with my Teresa I have never been faithless to her even in thought, although I am a bull-fighter; and I had my day and more than one la.s.s has cast tender eyes at me."

Gallardo burst out laughing at his _banderillero_. He talked like a father-superior. And was this the same man that wanted to eat the priests up raw?

"Nacional, don't be hard on me. Every one is what he is and since the women come, let them come. What does one live for? Any day he may go out of the ring foot foremost. Besides, thou knowest nothing of the affair, nor what a lady is. If thou couldst _see_ that woman!"

Then he ingenuously added, as if he wished to counter-act the expression of scandal and sadness engraved on Nacional's countenance:

"I love Carmen very much, dost thou understand? I love her as well as ever; but the other I love too. That is different. I don't know how to explain it to thee. That's another matter. Drop it!"

And the _banderillero_ could make no further headway in his expostulation with Gallardo.

Months before, when with the autumn came the end of the bull-fighting season, the swordsman had had an adventure at the Church of San Lorenzo.

He was resting in Seville a few days before going to La Rinconada with his family. To kill more than a hundred bulls a year with all the danger and strain of the contest did not weary him so much as the ceaseless travel from one end of Spain to the other during a period of several months. These journeys were made in mid-summer, under a blistering sun, over parched plains and in old cars whose roofs seemed to be on fire.

The water-jar belonging to the _cuadrilla_, filled at every station, was not enough to quench the thirst. Moreover, the trains ran crowded with pa.s.sengers--people going to the fairs in the cities to see the bull-fights. Often Gallardo, for fear of missing the train, killed his last bull in one plaza, and, still dressed in his fighting costume, rushed to the train, pa.s.sing like a meteor of light and color among the groups of travellers and baggage trucks, and changed his clothes in a first-cla.s.s compartment under the gaze of the pa.s.sengers, who were glad to travel with a celebrity.

When he arrived, worn-out, at some city where the streets were in festal array, decorated with banners and arches, he had to endure the torment of enthusiastic adoration. The connoisseurs and his personal adherents met him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. They were well-rested and happy folk who grasped him by the hand and expected to find him expansive and loquacious, as though on meeting them he must perforce experience the greatest pleasure.

Frequently a single _corrida_ was not all. He had to fight bulls three or four days in succession, and when night came, exhausted from weariness and lack of sleep on account of his recent excitement, he gave up all social affairs and sat at the door of the hotel in his shirt-sleeves, enjoying the fresh air of the street. The "boys" of the _cuadrilla_ lodged at the same inn and kept near the _maestro_, like a brotherhood in a cloister. Some of the most audacious would ask permission to take a walk along the illuminated streets and out to the fair grounds.

"Miuras to-morrow!" said the _matador_. "I know what those walks are.

Thou wilt return at daybreak with two gla.s.ses too many and thou'lt not fail to have some kind of an affair to take thy strength. No; thou canst not go. When we get through thou mayest play."