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

words he drove away while she went into the hotel.

It was Doña Sol. The bull-fighter did not doubt her identity. Neither did he doubt the relations that united her to the foreigner after seeing her glances and the smile with which they said farewell. Thus she used to look at him, thus she used to smile at him in those happy days when they rode together in the deserted fields illuminated by the soft rose-color of the setting sun—"Curse it!"

He spent the evening in ill-humor in the company of some friends; then he slept badly, many scenes of the past being reproduced in his dreams. When he rose the dark and livid light of a gloomy day entered through the balconies. It was raining, the water drops mingled with flakes of snow. Everything was black; the sky, the walls opposite, a dripping gable within view, the muddy pavement, the roofs of the coaches shining like mirrors, the movable cupolas of the umbrellas.

Eleven o'clock! Should he go to see Doña Sol? Why not! The night before he had put aside this thought with a rush of anger. That would be to humble himself. She had run away from him without any explanation whatever, and later, when she heard of his being wounded unto death, she had scarcely interested herself in his health. A simple telegram at first and nothing more, not even a poor letter of a few lines; she, who with such ease wrote to her friends. No; he would not go to see her. He was very proud.

But the next morning his determination seemed to have softened during the night. "Why not?" he asked himself. He must see her again. For him she was first among all the women he had ever known; she attracted him with a force different from the affection he felt for others. "I have a right to her," the bull-fighter said to himself, realizing his weakness. Ah! how he had felt the violent separation!

The atrocious goring in the plaza of Seville, with the rigor of physical pain, had softened the force of his amorous torment. Illness, and then his tender reinstatement in the good graces of Carmen during convalescence, had made him resigned to his fate. But forget? Never! He had made every effort not to think of the past, but the most insignificant circumstance—passing along a road on which he had galloped with the beautiful Amazon; meeting on the street an English blonde; contact with those young Sevillian gentlemen who were her relatives, all resurrected the image of Doña Sol. Ah, this woman! He would never find another like her. When he lost her, Gallardo believed the decadence of his life had begun. He was no longer the same. He deemed himself many steps lower in social consideration. He even attributed his downfall in his art to this abandonment. When he had her he was more valiant. When the blonde girl fled bad luck had begun for the bull-fighter. If she would return to him, surely the sun of his glory would rise again. His spirit, at times sustained, at others weakened by the mirage of superstition, believed this firmly.

Perhaps his desire to see her might stir again a joyful heart-throb, like that which had often saved him in the ring. Why not? He had great confidence in himself. His easy triumphs with women dazzled by his success made him believe in the irresistible charm of his person. It might be that Doña Sol, seeing him after a long absence—who could tell! The first time they were alone it happened so.

And Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, with the arrogant tranquillity of a man of fortune, who necessarily must awaken desire wherever his gaze falls, marched over to the Hotel de Paris, which was situated a short distance from his own.

He had to wait more than half an hour subjected to the curious gaze of employees and guests who turned their faces on hearing his name.

A servant invited him to enter the elevator and conducted him to a little salon on the next floor from which the Puerta del Sol could be seen with the black roofs of the houses opposite, the pavements concealed beneath the meeting streams of umbrellas, and the shining asphalt of the plaza furrowed by swift coaches, which seemed to whip the rain, or by tram cars that crossed in every direction and rang an incessant warning to the foot passengers.

A little door concealed by hangings opened and Doña Sol appeared, amid a rustling of silk, and a sweet perfume of fresh pink flesh, in all the splendor of the summer of her existence.

Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, inspecting her with the exactitude of one who knew her well and did not forget details.

Just as she was in Seville! No—more beautiful, if possible, with the added temptation of a long absence.

She presented herself in elegant abandon, wearing an odd costume with strange jewels, as he first saw her in her house in Seville. Her feet were thrust into slippers covered with heavy gold embroideries which, when she sat down and crossed her limbs, hung loose, ready to fall off her pointed toes. She extended him her hand, smiling with amiable frigidity.

"How are you, Gallardo? I knew you were in Madrid. I have seen you."

You! She no longer used the thou of the great lady, to which he had responded with respectful courtesy as her lover in a class beneath. This you that seemed to put them on a level drove the swordsman to despair. He wished to be a kind of serf, elevated by love to the great lady's arms, and he found himself treated with the cold and courteous consideration which an ordinary friend inspires.

She explained that she had attended the only bull-fight Gallardo had given in Madrid and had seen him there. She had gone to see the bulls with a foreigner who desired a glimpse of things Spanish; a friend who accompanied her on her travels but who lived in another hotel.

Gallardo responded to this with an affirmative movement of the head. He remembered the foreigner; he had seen him with her.

The two fell into a long silence, not knowing what to say. Doña Sol was the first to break the pause.

She found the bull-fighter looking well; she vaguely recollected about a great wound he had received; she was almost certain of having telegraphed to Seville, asking for news of him. With the life she lived, with continual change of country and new friendships, her thoughts were in such confusion! But he appeared now as usual, and in the corrida he had seemed to her arrogant and strong, although rather unlucky. She did not understand much about bulls. "Was it nothing, that goring?"

Gallardo was irritated by the accent of indifference with which the woman asked the question. And he, when he considered himself between life and death, had thought only of her!

With the gloom of dismay he told her about his being caught, and of his convalescence which had lasted all winter.

She listened to him with feigned interest, while her eyes revealed indifference. The misfortunes of the gladiator were of no importance to her. They were accidents of his trade which could only be of interest to him.

Gallardo, as he spoke of his convalescence at the plantation, thought of the man he and Doña Sol had met together there. "And Plumitas? Do you remember that poor fellow? He was killed. I don't know whether you heard about it."

Doña Sol also vaguely remembered this. Possibly she had read it in the Paris newspapers, which printed a great deal about the bandit as an interesting type of picturesque Spain.

"Poor man," said Doña Sol with indifference. "I barely recall him as a clownish and uninteresting rustic. At a distance things are seen at their true values. What I do remember is the day he breakfasted with us at the farmhouse."

Gallardo had not forgotten this event. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion he took the flower offered by Doña Sol! Did she not remember?

Doña Sol's eyes showed sincere astonishment.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Is that so? I swear I remember nothing about it. Ah! that land of the sun! The intoxication of the picturesque! The follies one commits!"

Her exclamations, revealed a vague repentance. Then she began to laugh.

"And maybe that poor rustic kept the flower until his last moment; no, Gallardo? Don't tell me he did not. Perhaps no one ever gave him a flower before in all his life. And it is possible also they found that dried flower on his dead body, a mysterious token no one could explain. Don't you know anything about it, Gallardo? Didn't the newspapers mention it? Hush; don't tell me no; don't dispel my illusions. It must have been so; I want it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interesting! And I had forgotten all about the flower! I will tell my friend, who thinks he will write on things Spanish."

The recollection of this friend, who within a few minutes was brought into the conversation for a second time, depressed the bull-fighter.

He sat gazing steadily at the beautiful lady with a tearful melancholy in his Moorish eyes which seemed to implore compassion.

"Doña Sol! Doña Sol!" he murmured with an accent of despair, as if he would reproach her for her cruelty.

"What is it, my friend?" she asked smiling. "What is the matter with you?"

Gallardo kept silence and bowed his head, intimidated by the ironic reflection in those blue eyes, sparkling with their tiny flakes of gold.

After a moment he sat erect as does one who adopts a resolution.

"Where have you been all this time, Doña Sol?"

"Travelling about the world," she answered simply. "I am a bird of passage. In innumerable cities whose very names you do not know."

"And that foreigner who accompanies you now—is—?"

"He is a friend," she said coldly. "A friend who has had the kindness to accompany me, taking advantage of the opportunity to see Spain; a fine man who bears an illustrious name. From here we go to Andalusia when he gets through seeing the museums. What more do you desire to know?"

In that question, asked with hauteur, an imperious intention of keeping the bull-fighter at a distance was apparent, of establishing social differences between the two. Gallardo was disconcerted.

"Doña Sol!" he moaned with ingenuousness. "God cannot forgive what you have done to me! You have been unkind to me, very unkind. Why did you run away without a word?"

His eyes moistened, he clenched his fists in desperation.

"Don't act so, Gallardo. What I did was a great favor to you. Don't you know me well enough yet? Did you not weary of that affair? If I were a man I would run away from women of my character. The unhappy man who falls in love with me is a suicide."

"But why did you go?" insisted Gallardo.

"I went because I was bored. Do I speak clearly? And when a woman is bored, I believe she has a right to escape in search of new diversions. I am bored to death everywhere; pity me."

"But I love you with all my soul!" exclaimed the bull-fighter with a dramatic and ingenuous expression that would have been ridiculous in another man.

"I love you with all my soul!" repeated Doña Sol imitating his accent and gesture. "And what of that? Ah, these egotistical men, who are applauded by the people and imagine that everything has been created for them. 'I love thee with all my soul and therefore thou must love me also'—But no, señor. I do not love you, Gallardo. You are my friend and nothing more. That affair in Seville was a dream, a mad caprice, which I barely recollect and which you should forget."

The bull-fighter rose, drawing near Doña Sol with extended hands. In his ignorance he did not know what to say, divining that his rude words were inefficient to convince that woman. He trusted