The Blood of the Arena Part 24

He met Gallardo on the street. The latter seemed ill-humored, but on seeing his _banderillero_ he feigned smiles and animation, as if the domestic troubles made no impression upon him.

"Things are going bad, Juaniyo. I shall never go to thy house again, even though they try to drag me there. Thy mother insults me as though I were a gypsy of Triana. Thy wife weeps and looks at me, as though it was all my fault. Man, do me the favor to not remember me again. Take another a.s.sociate when thou goest with women."

Gallardo smiled amiably. That was nothing. That would soon pa.s.s. He had faced worse trials.

"What thou must do is to keep on coming. With many people there is no riot."

"I?" exclaimed Nacional. "To a priest's house first!"

The _matador_ knew it was useless to insist after that. He spent most of the day out of the house, away from the women's silent and tearful reproaches, and when he returned it was with an escort, shielding himself by his manager and other friends.

One day Carmen sent for the _banderillero_ to come to see her. She received Nacional in her husband's office, where they could be alone, instead of in the busy courtyard or the dining-room. Gallardo was at his club on Sierpes Street. He fled from the house, and to avoid meeting his wife, he dined outside many days, going with companions to the Eritana inn.

Nacional seated himself on a divan, his head bowed and his hat in his hands, not wishing to look at his master's wife. How she had failed! Her eyes were red and encircled by deep, dark hollows. Her cheeks were sallow and the end of her nose shone with a rosy color that told of much rubbing with the handkerchief.

"Sebastian, you must tell me the whole truth. You are good, you are Juan's best friend. Never mind what _Mamita_ said the other day. You know how good she is. She speaks her mind hastily, and then it is all over."

The _banderillero_ a.s.sented with a nod while awaiting her question. What did the Senora Carmen wish to know?

"Tell me what happened at La Rincona', what you saw, and what you think."

Ah! good Nacional! With what n.o.ble pride he held his head high, happy to be able to do good and to comfort the forlorn soul. See? He had seen nothing wrong!

"I swear it by my father, I swear it--by my ideas."

And without fear he took his oath on the most holy testimony of his ideas, for in reality he had seen nothing and not seeing it, he logically thought, in the pride of his perspicacity and wisdom, that nothing wrong could have happened.

"I think they are no more than friends--now--if there has been anything between them before--I don't know. The people say--they talk--they invent so many lies! Pay no attention, Sena' Carmen. To be happy and to be alive, that is reality!"

She insisted again. But what had happened at the hacienda? The hacienda was her home, and it angered her to see, in addition to infidelity, something that seemed a sacrilege, a direct insult to her person.

"Do you think I am a fool, Sebastian? I have seen everything since he first began to notice that lady, or whatever she may be; I even knew Juan's thoughts. The day he dedicated a bull to her and brought home that diamond ring I guessed what was between the two and I felt like grabbing the ring and stamping on it. From that time I have known everything, everything! There are always people who take it upon themselves to carry tales because they can hurt one. And besides, they haven't been cautious, they have gone everywhere together, just like gypsies that travel from fair to fair. When I was at the plantation I heard about all that Juan was doing and afterward at Sanlucar, too."

Nacional thought it necessary to interrupt, seeing that Carmen was moved by these memories and was beginning to cry.

"And do you believe lies, child? Don't you see they are the inventions of people that want to hurt him? Envy, nothing more."

"No; I know Juan. Do you think this is the first one? He is what he is.

And he can't be different. Cursed trade, that seems to turn men mad!

After we had been married only two years he had a love affair with a girl from the market, a butcher girl. What I suffered when I found it out! But I never said a word. He still thinks I don't know it. After that, how many he has had! Girls that dance on the stage in _cafes_, women of the street, and even lost creatures that live in public houses.

I don't know how many there have been--dozens! And I was silent, because I wished to keep peace in my home. But this woman he has now is not like the others. Juan is crazy for her; he is foolish; I know he has done thousands of humiliating things so that she, recollecting that she is a lady of high birth, will not throw him out into the street in sudden shame from having relations with a bull-fighter. She has gone now.

Didn't you know it? I found out she had gone because she is bored in Seville. She left without saying good-bye to Juan, and when he went to see her the other day, he found the door closed. And there he is, sad as a sick horse; he goes around among his friends with a funereal face and drinks to cheer himself up; and when he comes home he acts as if he had had a beating. No; he can't forget that woman. The senor was proud of having a woman of that cla.s.s care for him and his pride is hurt at being left. Ah, how disgusted I am with him! He is no longer my husband. He seems to me a different person. We hardly ever speak to one another--just as if we were strangers, except when quarrelling. I am alone upstairs and he sleeps downstairs in a room off the courtyard. We shall never be united again, I swear it! Long ago I could overlook everything; they were bad habits belonging to the profession; the bull-fighters' mania. They believe themselves irresistible to women--but now I don't want to see him any more; he has become repugnant to me."

She spoke with energy, her eyes shining with the glow of hatred.

"Ah, that woman! How she has changed him! He is another man! He only cares to go with rich young fellows, and now the people of our ward and all the poor in Seville who were his friends, and helped him in the beginning, complain of him and some fine day they will raise a riot in the plaza because he is ungrateful. Money comes in here by the basketful, and it isn't easy to count it. Not even he himself ever knows what he has, but I see it all. He gambles a great deal to make his new friends like him, he loses much; the money comes in one door and goes out the other. I say nothing to him. It is he that earns it. But he has had to ask a loan from Don Jose for things needed at the hacienda and some olive orchards he bought this year to add to the property were purchased with other people's money. Nearly everything he earns during the coming season will go to pay debts.

"And if he should have an accident, and have to retire as others do!

"He has even wanted to change me, just as he is changed. The _senor_ shows, when he comes home after visiting his Dona Sol, or Dona Devil, that his _mamita_ and I seem to him very out of date in our shawls and our loose gowns such as are worn by all the daughters of the land. He it is who has made me wear those hats brought from Madrid in which I look so hideous, just like one of those monkeys that dance to the hand-organs. The _mantilla_ is so rich! And he has bought that h.e.l.l-wagon, that automobile, that I am always afraid to ride in and which smells to heaven. If we would let him he would even put a hat with rooster's tails on poor _Mamita_. He is a vain fellow who thinks only of that other woman and wants to make us like her so that he won't be ashamed of us."

The _banderillero_ broke forth in protests. Not so! Juan was good-hearted and he did all this because he loved his family and wanted them to have luxuries.

"What you say about Juaniyo may be true, Sena' Carmen, but he must be forgiven some things. Come! How many there are who die with envy at sight of you! Is it nothing to be the wife of the bravest of all the bull-fighters, with handfuls of money and a marvel of a house, of which you are absolute mistress?--for the master gives you charge of everything!"

Carmen's eyes grew moist and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I would rather be a shoe-maker's wife! How often I have thought it! If only Juan had followed his trade instead of catching this bull-fighting mania! I would be happier in a poor shawl going to carry him his dinner in the _portal_ where he worked as did his father. There wouldn't be any smart girls to take him away from me; he would be mine; we might know want, but on Sundays, dressed in our best, we would go to dine at an inn. Besides, the agonies of fear those accursed bulls cause me! This is not living. Plenty of money, plenty! But believe me, Sebastian, it is like poison to me, and the more that comes into the house the more my blood chills. What are hats and all this luxury to me? People think I am happy and they envy me, while my eyes follow the poor women that have less, but who carry their babies in their arms and when they are in trouble forget it in looking into the child's eyes and laughing with it.

Ah, children! I know how great is my misfortune. If only we had children! If Juan could see a child in the house that was his own, all his own, something nearer than his little nephews!"

Carmen poured forth a continuous flow of tears that escaped through the folds of her handkerchief and bathed her reddened cheeks. It was the sorrow of the childless woman, ever envying the happy fate of mothers; the desperation of the wife who, on seeing her husband growing distant to her, pretends to think it due to divers causes, but in the depths of her soul attributes the misfortune to her barrenness. Ah! for a son to unite them! And Carmen, convinced by the pa.s.sing years of the futility of this desire, was in despair and gazed enviously at her silent listener, to whom Nature had prodigally given that for which she longed in vain.

The _banderillero_ departed from this interview with his head bent low and went in search of the _maestro_, meeting him at the door of the Forty-five.

"Juan, I have seen thy wife. The affair grows worse and worse. Try to make up with her, to straighten things out."

"d.a.m.n it! May sickness end her, thee, and me! This is not living. G.o.d permit that Sunday a bull may catch me and so it will all be ended! What is life worth!"

He was partially drunk. He was desperate over the sullen frown he met in his house and still more (though he confessed it to none), over the flight of Dona Sol without leaving a word for him, not even a paper with four lines of farewell. They had put him out of the door; had treated him worse than if he had been a servant. He did not even know where the woman was. The Marquis had interested himself but little in his niece's journey. The maddest girl! She had not told him, either, about her going, but not on that account would he think her lost in the world. She would soon give signs of existence from some strange country where her caprices had carried her.

Gallardo did not conceal his desperation in his own house. At the silence of his wife, who kept her eyes lowered, or looked at him frowning and refusing to converse, the _matador_ burst forth into deadly curses.

"d.a.m.n my fate! I hope a Miura will hook me Sunday and shake me like a bell, and that they will bring me home on a stretcher!"

"Don't say that, _malaje!_" wailed Senora Angustias. "Don't tempt G.o.d.

See if that don't bring bad luck."

But the brother-in-law intervened with his sententious air, taking advantage of the opportunity to flatter the swordsman.

"Never mind, _Mamita_. There isn't a bull alive that can touch him!"

Sunday was the last bull-fight of the year in which Gallardo was to work. He spent the morning without the vague fears and superst.i.tious preoccupations of other occasions. He dressed himself joyfully, with a nervous excitement that seemed to augment the vigor of his arms and legs. What joy that he would be able to rush out upon the yellow sand and astound twelve thousand spectators by his gallantry and daring! His art was the only reality--something which awakened the enthusiasm of the mult.i.tudes and brought in money without measure. All the rest, family and love, but served to complicate existence and cause unhappiness. Ah!

What sword-thrusts he was going to make! He felt the strength of a giant within himself. He was a different man, he had neither fear nor dread.

He even showed impatience that it was not yet the hour for going to the plaza, contrary to other times when he had put off the dreaded moment.

His fury at his domestic unhappiness and at that flight which wounded his vanity, made him long to throw himself upon the bulls.

When the carriage arrived, Gallardo crossed the courtyard, on this occasion, paying no attention to the women's emotion. Carmen did not appear. Bah! Women! They only serve to embitter life. Only in men did one find lasting affection and joyful companionship. There was his brother-in-law admiring himself before going to the plaza, happy in a street suit of the master's which had been made over to his measure even before the owner had worn it. In spite of being a ridiculous charlatan he was worth more than all the rest of the family. He never abandoned him.

"Thou art finer than Roger de Flor himself," Gallardo told him gayly.

"Get into the coach--and I'll take thee to the plaza."

His brother-in-law seated himself near the great man, trembling with pride as he rode along the streets of Seville, that all should see him seated among the silken capes and the heavy gold embroideries of the bull-fighters.

The plaza was full. This important _corrida_ at the end of autumn had attracted a great audience, not only from the city but from the country as well. Upon the "bleachers" in the sun were seated many people from the surrounding country towns.

From the first instant Gallardo showed the nervous activity that possessed him. He was to be seen far from the _barrera_ advancing to meet the bull, distracting him with his cape-work, while the _picadores_ awaited the moment in which the bull would attack their miserable horses.

A certain antagonism of the public against the bull-fighter could be felt. They applauded him as usual, but the demonstrations of enthusiasm were more hearty and warm on the shady side than on the rows of seats in the sun, where many sat in their shirt-sleeves in the burning rays.