The Blood of the Arena by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (big screen ebook reader TXT) 📕

Nazarenes black and white, red, green, blue and violet, all masked, hiding their mysterious personality beneath their pointed hoods.

The heavy platforms advanced slowly and with great difficulty because of the narrowness of the street. On reaching the plaza of San Francisco, opposite the viewing stand built in front of the Government palace, the floats made a half-turn until they stood facing the images and by a genuflexion of their bearers they saluted the illustrious strangers and royal personages gathered to witness the feast.

Near the floats marched boys with pitchers of water. The catafalque had scarcely stopped when a fold of the velvet hangings which hid its interior was raised and twenty or thirty men appeared, sweaty, purple from fatigue, half naked, with handkerchiefs bound around their heads, and looking like tired savages. They were the so-called "Galicians," in which geographic appellative are confounded all lusty workmen whatever may be their origin, as though the other sons of the country were not capable of constant or fatiguing labor. They greedily drank the water, or, if there were a tavern near, they rebelled against the director of the float and demanded wine. Thus the festivities were prolonged through the whole night, frivolous, gay, and theatrical. In vain the brass horns sent forth their death-laments proclaiming the greatest of crimes, the unjust death of a God. Nature did not respond to this traditional sorrow. The river went purling on beneath the bridges, spreading its luminous sheet through the silent fields; the orange trees, incense-givers of the night, opened their thousand white mouths and shed the fragrance of voluptuous fruit upon the air; the palms waved their clusters of plumes over the Moorish ramparts of the Alcázar; the Giralda, a blue phantom, vanished in the heavens, eclipsing stars and hiding a portion of the sky behind its shapely mass; and the moon, intoxicated by nocturnal perfumes, seemed to smile at the earth swollen with the nutrient sap of spring, at the luminous furrow-like streets of the city in whose ruddy depths swarmed a multitude content just to be alive, which drank and sang and found a pretext for interminable feasting in a tragic death of long ago.

At the door of a café stood Nacional with all his family watching the passing of the brotherhood. "Superstition and ignorance!" But he followed the custom, coming every year to witness the invasion of Sierpes Street by the noisy Macarenes.

He immediately recognized Gallardo by his genteel bearing and the athletic jauntiness with which he wore the inquisitorial vestment.

"Juanillo; have the procession stop. There are some foreign ladies in the café who want to get a good look at the Macarena."

The sacred platform came to a halt; the band played a gay march, one of those that enlivens the audience at the bull-ring, and immediately the hidden conductors of the float commenced to raise one leg in unison, then the other, executing a dance that made the catafalque move with violent undulations, crowding the people against the walls. The Virgin, with the burden of her heavy mantle, jewels, flowers, and lanterns, danced to the music. This exhibition was the result of practice and one which was the pride of the Macarenos. The good youths of the ward, holding both sides of the float, supported it during this violent commotion and shouted with enthusiasm at this exhibition of strength and skill.

"Let all Seville come to see this! It is great! This only the Macarenos do!"

And when the music and the undulations ceased and the float again stood still there was thunderous applause mingled with impious and vulgar compliments to the Most Holy Macarena. They shouted vivas to the Most Holy Macarena, the sainted, the only.

The brotherhood continued on its triumphal march, leaving stragglers in every tavern and fallen on every street. The sun, as it rose, surprised it far from the parish at the extreme opposite side of Seville, made the jewelled armor on the image scintillate with its first rays, and lighted up the livid countenances of the Nazarenes who had taken off their masks. The image and her attendants, overtaken by the dawn, resembled a dissolute troop returning from an orgy. The two floats were abandoned in the middle of the street near the market, while the whole procession took an eye-opener in the nearby taverns, substituting great glasses of Cazalla and Rute brandy for native wine. The hooded brethren's white garments were now filthy rags; nothing but miserable relics remained of the brilliant "Jewish" army which looked as though returning from a defeat. The captain walked with unsteady step, the melancholy plumes fallen over his livid countenance, his only thought to defend his glorious raiment from being rubbed and pulled to pieces. Respect the uniform!

Gallardo left the procession soon after sunrise. He had done enough in accompanying the Virgin all night and surely she would take it into account. Besides, this last part of the feast, until the Macarena entered San Gil, now nearly mid-day, was the most disagreeable. The people who arose fresh and tranquil from sleep jested at the hooded brethren so ridiculous in the sunlight, dragging along in their drunkenness and filth. It was not prudent for a matador to be seen with them.

Señora Angustias kept watch for him in the courtyard and helped the Nazarene take off his vestments. He must rest after having fulfilled his duty to the Virgin. Easter Sunday he was to have a bull-fight; the first after his accident. Accursed trade! For him rest was impossible, and the poor women, after a period of tranquillity, saw their old fears and anguish renewed.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION

SATURDAY and Sunday morning Gallardo received calls from enthusiastic connoisseurs from outside Seville who had come for the fiestas of Holy Week and to the Feria. All were smiling, confident of his future heroism.

"We'll see how thou'lt stand up! The devotees have their eyes fixed on thee. How is thy strength?"

Gallardo did not doubt his vigor. The months spent in the country had strengthened him. He was now as strong as before he had been gored. The only thing that made him recall his accident when hunting on the plantation was a certain weakness in the wounded leg. But this he only noticed after long trips.

"I'll do all I know how to do," murmured Gallardo. "I don't think I'll be altogether bad."

The manager put in a word with the mad blindness of his faith.

"Thou'lt flourish like the roses themselves—like an angel."

Then, forgetting the bull-fight for a moment, they commented on a piece of news that had just circulated through the city.

On a mountain in the province of Córdova the civil guard had found a decomposed body with a head mutilated and almost blown off by a gun-shot. It was impossible to recognize it, but the clothing, the carbine, all made them believe it was Plumitas. Gallardo listened in silence. He had not seen the bandit since his accident, but he remembered him well. His plantation hands had told him that while he was in danger Plumitas twice presented himself at La Rinconada to inquire for his health. Afterward, while living there with his family, herders and laborers spoke to him several times mysteriously about Plumitas, who, when he met them on the highway and learned that they were from La Rinconada, gave them greetings for Señor Juan. Poor man! Gallardo pitied him, recalling his predictions. The civil guard had not killed him. He had been assassinated while asleep. He had perished at the hands of one of his kind, of one of his followers, seeking notoriety.

Sunday his departure for the plaza was more trying than ever. Carmen made strong efforts to be calm and was even present while Garabato dressed the maestro. She smiled, with a sad smile; she feigned gayety, thinking she noticed in her husband an equal anxiety which he also tried to hide under a forced exhilaration. Señora Angustias paced up and down outside the room to see her Juan once more, as though she were about to lose him. When Gallardo went out into the courtyard with his cap on and his cape over his shoulder the mother threw her arms around his neck, shedding tears. She did not utter a word, but her heavy sobs revealed her thoughts. To fight for the first time after his accident, in the same plaza where he had been gored! The superstition of the woman of the people rebelled against this foolhardiness. Ah! When would he retire from the accursed trade? Had he not enough money yet?

But the brother-in-law intervened with authority as the grave family counsellor. "Come, Mamita, this does not amount to so much—a bull-fight like all the others! Juan must be left in peace and his serenity must not be upset by this continual crying just as he is to start for the plaza."

Carmen accompanied her husband to the door; she wished to encourage him. Besides, since her love had been reawakened by the accident and she and Juan had again been living happily together, she would not believe that a new misfortune would come to disturb her joy. That goring was an act of God, who often brings good out of ill, and He wished to draw them together again by this means. Juan would fight bulls as before and would come home well and sound.

"Good luck to thee!"

With loving eyes she watched the carriage that drove away followed by a troop of ragamuffins. When the poor woman was left alone she went up to her room and lighted candles before an image of the Virgin of Hope.

Nacional rode in the coach at his master's side, frowning and gloomy. That Sunday was election day, but his companions in the cuadrilla had not heard of it. The people only talked of Plumitas' death and of the bull-fight. The banderillero had remained with his fellow committeemen until past mid-day, "working for the idea." Accursed corrida that came to interrupt his duties as a good citizen, preventing him from taking to the polls several friends who would not vote if he did not go for them. Only "those of the idea" went to the voting places; the city seemed to ignore the existence of the elections. There were great groups in the streets arguing passionately; but they only talked of bulls. What people! Nacional recollected with indignation the schemes and outrages of the opposition to bring about this neglect of civic duty. Don Joselito, who had protested with all his forensic eloquence, was in prison with other companions. The banderillero, who would gladly have shared their martyrdom, had been obliged to abandon them, to put on his glittering costume and follow his master. Was this outrage to good citizens to go unrebuked? Would not the people rise in retaliation?

As the coach passed the vicinity of Campana Street the bull-fighters saw a great crowd flourishing clubs and heard them shouting. The police, sabres in hand, were charging upon them, receiving blows and returning them two for one.

Ah, at last! The moment had arrived!

"The revolution! The fight is on!"

But the maestro, half smiling, half angry, pushed him back into his seat.

"Don't be a fool, Sebastián; thou seest nothing but revolutions and hobgoblins everywhere."

The members of the cuadrilla smiled, divining the fact that it was only the noble people, angered at not being able to get tickets for the bull-fight at the office on Campana Street, and who now wanted to attack and burn it, but were held in check by the police. Nacional sadly hung his head.

"Reaction and ignorance! The lack of knowing how to read and write."

They arrived at the plaza. A noisy ovation, an interminable outburst of hand-clapping, greeted the appearance of the cuadrillas in the ring. All the applause was for Gallardo. The public hailed his first appearance in the arena after the terrible injury that had caused so much talk all over the Peninsula.

When the moment came for