Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

detail vary. Now and again a pcón, opening his cloak (abriendo el capote), is harder pressed than he anticipated, escapes precipitately (saliendo por piés), and vaults the barrier into the callejón.

It goes

without saying that some of the quites are more showy (lucidos) than others: now it is Guerrita who surpasses himself, now Fuentes, and now Reverte. These three matadores possess characteristics which strongly distinguish them; just as no one singer's voice, or painter's touch, is identical with another's. The course of the corrida includes manœuvres so many, and so variously executed by one or other of these heroes, as well as by the members of their cuadrillas, that to attempt to describe them all would be inevitably to bewilder-now a larga, now a galleo, now a pase de pecho by the matador, now a pase cambiado, now a pase de telón, now a faultless estocada up to the hilt, now a tendida almost horizontal, now a media, or half, now a pinchazo which does the beast no harm at all, now a bajonazo or stroke delivered below the proper point enormity which evokes the gibes and execrations of the aficionados; for however hard it may prove to be a bullfighter, it appears to be simplicity itself to damn one.

an

But the general outline of the programme does not vary. Each bull is first of all attacked and weakened by the picadores, then he passes on to the banderilleros, and finally to the espada. On one occasion, during a suerte de vara, the picador, through carelessness, or funk, or want of skill, leaves his garrocha sticking in the bull's neck, and while the brute is being enticed sufficiently near to the barrier

N

to lug away the projecting shaft, the público riddle the cowering misdemeanant with volley upon volley of oaths and ribald epithets. Horses, fewer or more as the case may be, will fall and be thwacked again to their feet by the assiduous "wise monkeys," and gored in every possible manner, until they are ripped to shreds, and little of their flesh and nothing of their life remains to them; and then the teams of the arrastre, to the music of their merry bells, will drag them away and out of sight; and upon the morrow, says your neighbour facetiously, the price of chorizos will be cheaper.

But the prettiest and most interesting detail of the whole corrida is when Guerrita and Fuentes, in response to the clamorous petition of the spectators, consent to banderillear the fifth bull, for each of these famous matadores is also the beau ideal of a banderillero. Guerrita, who takes the first pair, in spite of his verging upon forty years is as active as a springbuck, and glories, before actually planting the palos, in making believe that he is going to plant them; in playing, as it were, with his enemy, in exhibiting a series of salidas en falso, or feints, electrifying the aficionados by these masterly and classical adornos. But between Rafael and. Fuentes there is little if anything to choose. If one has his darling method, so has the other, and when Guerrita has clavado his par as magistralmente as is his wont, the other advances towards the bull, pulls out his handkerchief, lays it on the ground, plants both feet upon it, and then, by dint of calling and alegrando him for quite a while, induces him to charge. As he does so, and without stirring a hair's

[merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

breadth from the handkerchief, but merely swaying his body to one side, Fuentes drives in the banderillas to perfection, while the bull, sweeping impetuously onwards, grazes his very taleguilla.

"¡Vaya un par quebrando!" says my neighbour; and you may be sure that Fuentes goes down in his good books.

But the cloudless afternoon is ripening into sundown, shadows fall deeply over all the plaza, and before Fuentes has despatched the sixth and last bicho, the concourse begins to melt away. My friend the revistero eagerly gathers up his hastily scrawled cuartillas, and bidding me adieu, vanishes. As a student of human, as well as of animal nature, I prefer, for my own part, to wait until the very end, and even later; till the acomodadores have gathered up the leather cushions from the tendidos, and the tag-rag and bob-tail who vaulted feverishly into the anillo when the last blow was struck and taurus reluctantly gave up the ghost, have frolicked about him to their hearts' content, and kicked his flanks, and poked him with sticks; and the mules have dragged him away to join his brethren.

A stream of light, as red as the blood that just now colored the arena, pours through a western doorway, striking the desolate files of empty benches. The president has left his box, and the multitude gathers about the exits, till the last and laziest find egress, and the plaza is wholly deserted. Outside, at the door of the patio de caballos, the cuadrillas are in their respective jardineras, mopping their streaming foreheads, nodding a cheery greeting to their friends, or shaking hands with the nearest. Finally the mozo de estoques,

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »