In the middle of spring the temperature suddenly fell, with the violent extremes of the uncertain and fickle Madrid climate.

It was very cold. A grey sky poured down torrents of rain, mingled with flakes of snow, and people who were already dressed in their light clothes, opened boxes and cupboards in search of cloaks and wraps.

For two weeks there had been no function in the Plaza de Toros. The Sunday corrida had been fixed for the first weekday on which it should be fine. The manager, the employés of the Plaza and the innumerable amateurs whom this enforced inaction put out of temper, watched the sky with the anxiety of peasants who are fearing for their harvest. A slight rent in the sky or the appearance of a few stars as they left their cafés at midnight raised their spirits.

"The weather is lifting.... We shall have a corrida the day after to-morrow."

But the clouds rolled together again, and the leaden sky continued to pour down its torrents. The aficionados were furious with the weather, which seemed to have set itself against the national sport. Horrid climate! which made even corridas impossible.

Gallardo had, therefore, a fortnight of enforced rest. His cuadrilla complained bitterly of the inaction. In any other town in Spain the men would have resigned themselves to the detention, because the espada paid all their hotel expenses in every place but Madrid. It was[Pg 283] a bad custom initiated by former maestros living near the capital. It was supposed that the proper domicile of every real torero was in la Corte,[102] and the poor peons and picadors, who lodged in a boarding-house kept by the widow of a banderillero, eked out their existence by all sorts of petty economies, smoking but little, and standing outside the café doors. They thought of their families with the avarice of men who only receive a few coins in exchange for their blood. By the time these two corridas had come off they would already have devoured their earnings in anticipation.

The espada was equally ill-humoured in the solitude of his hotel, not on account of the weather, but on account of his ill luck.

He had fought his first corrida in Madrid with deplorable results, and the public were quite different to him. He still had many partizans of unquenchable faith, who rose in arms for his defence, but even those enthusiasts, so noisy and aggressive the previous year, now showed a certain reserve, and when they found occasion to applaud him they did so timidly. On the other hand, his enemies and the great mass of the populace always anxious for danger and death, how unjust they were in their judgments!... How ready to insult him!... What was tolerated in other matadors seemed vetoed for him.

They had seen him full of courage, throwing himself blindly into danger, and so they wished him to be always, till death should cut short his career. He had played almost suicidally with fate, when he was anxious to make a name for himself, and now people could not reconcile themselves to his prudence. Insults were always hurled at any attempt at self preservation. As certainly as he spread the muleta at a certain distance from the bull, so certainly the protests broke forth. He[Pg 284] did not throw himself on the bull! He was afraid! And it was sufficient for him to throw himself one step back for the people to greet this precaution with filthy insults.

The news of what had happened in Seville at the Easter corrida seemed to have circulated throughout Spain. His enemies were taking their revenge for long years of envy and jealousy. His professional companions whom he had often forced into danger from a feeling of emulation now babbled with hypocritical expressions of pity about Gallardo's decadence. His courage had given out! His last cogida had made him over prudent. And the audience, influenced by these rumours, now fixed their eyes on the torero as soon as he entered the Plaza, predisposed to find anything he did bad, just as previously they had applauded even his faults.

The fickleness so characteristic of mobs had much to say to this change of opinion. The people were tired of watching Gallardo's courage, and now they enjoyed watching his fear—or his prudence—as if it made themselves the braver.

The public never thought he was close enough to his bull. He must throw himself better on it! And when he, overcoming by sheer strength of will that nervousness which longed to fly from danger, had succeeded in killing a bull as in former days, the ovation was neither so prolonged nor so vehement. He seemed to have broken the current of enthusiasm which had formerly existed between himself and the populace. His scanty triumphs only served to make the people worry him with lectures and advice. That was the way to kill! You ought always to kill like that! Great cheat!

His faithful partizans recognized his failures, but they excused them, speaking of the former exploits performed by the espada on his lucky afternoons.

[Pg 285]

"He is somewhat over careful," they said. "He seems tired. But when he wishes!"...

Ay! but Gallardo always wished. Why could he not do well and gain the applause of the populace? But his successes, that the aficionados thought a caprice of his will, were really the work of chance or of a happy conjunction of circumstances, of that heart-throb of the olden days which now he so very seldom felt.

In many of the provincial Plazas he had been whistled, the people on the sunny side insulted him by the tooting of horns and the ringing of cow bells whenever he delayed in killing a bull, by giving it half-hearted estocades which did not make it bend its knees.

In Madrid the people waited for him "with their claws," as he said. As soon as the spectators of the first corrida saw him pass the bull with the muleta, and enter to kill, the row broke out. That lad from Seville had been changed! That was not Gallardo; it was some one else. He shortened his arm, he turned away his face; he ran with the quickness of a squirrel, putting himself out of reach of the bull's horns, without the calmness to stand quietly and wait for him. They noted a deplorable loss of courage and strength.

That corrida was a fiasco for Gallardo, and in the evening assemblies of the aficionados the affair was much canvassed. The old people who thought everything in the present day was bad spoke of the cowardice of modern toreros. They presented themselves with mad daring, but as soon as they felt the touch of a horn on their flesh ... they were done for!

Gallardo, obliged to rest in consequence of the bad weather, waited impatiently for the second corrida, with the fullest intention of performing great exploits. He was much pained at the wound inflicted on his amour-propre by the ridicule of his enemies; if he returned to[Pg 286] the provinces with the bad reputation of a fiasco in Madrid he was a lost man. He would master his nervousness, vanquish that dread which made him shrink and fancy the bulls larger and more formidable. He considered his strength quite equal to accomplish the same deeds as before. It was true there still remained a slight weakness in his arm and in his leg, but that would soon pass off.

His manager suggested his accepting a very advantageous contract for certain Plazas in America, but he refused. No, he could not cross the seas at present. He must first show Spain that he was the same espada as heretofore. Afterwards he would consider the propriety of undertaking that journey.

With the anxiety of a popular man who feels his prestige broken, Gallardo frequented the places where all the aficionados assembled. He went often to the Café Ingles, which the partisans of the Andalusian toreros frequented, thinking his presence would silence all unpleasant remarks. He himself, modest and smiling, began the conversation, with a humility that disarmed even the most irreconcilable.

"It is quite certain I did not do well, I quite recognize it. But you will see at the next corrida, when the weather clears.... I will do what I can."

He did not dare to enter certain cafés in the Puerta del Sol, where aficionados of a lower class assembled. They were thorough-going Madrile?os, inimical to Andalusian bull-fighting, and resentful that all the matadors came from Seville and Cordoba, while the capital seemed unable to produce a glorious representative. The remembrance of Frascuelo, whom they considered a son of Madrid, lived everlastingly in those assemblies. Many of them had not been to the Plaza for years, not in fact since the retirement of "El Negro." Why should[Pg 287] they? They were quite content to read the reports in the papers, being convinced that since Frascuelo's death there were neither bulls nor toreros, Andalusian lads and nothing more, dancers who made grimaces with their capes and their bodies, but did not know how to stand and "receive" a bull with dignity.

Now and again a slight breath of hope revived them. Madrid was soon going to have its own great matador. They had discovered in the suburbs a "novillero," who had already done good work in the Plazas of Vallecas and Tetuan, and had fought in the Madrid Plaza at the cheap Sunday afternoon corridas.

His name was becoming popular. In all the barbers' shops the greatest triumphs were predicted for him, but somehow or other those prophecies were never fulfilled, either the aspirant fell a victim to a mortal "cogida" or dropped into being one of the loafers in the Plaza del Sol, who aired their pigtails while they waited for imaginary contracts, and the aficionados were free to turn their attention to other rising stars.

Gallardo did not dare to approach the tauromachic demagogy, whom he knew had always hated him and were rejoicing at his decadence. Most of them would not go to see him in the circus, nor admire any torero of the present day. Their expected Messiah must arrive before they returned to the Plaza.

In order to distract his mind Gallardo would wander in the evenings through the Puerta del Sol, and allow himself to be accosted by those bull-fighting vagabonds who assembled there, boasting of their exploits; they were all smart, well dressed, with a marvellous display of imitation jewellery. They all saluted him respectfully as "Maestro" or "Se?o Juan"; some were honest fellows enough, who hoped to make a name for themselves, and maintain their families by something more than[Pg 288] workmen's wages, others were less scrupulous, but all ended by borrowing a few pesetas from him.

In addition to the amusement offered by those would-be toreros, he was much diverted by the importunity of an admirer who pestered him with his projects. This man was a tavern-keeper at Las Ventas, a rough Galician of powerful build, short-necked and high-coloured, who had made a little fortune in his shop where soldiers and servants went to dance on Sundays.

He had only one son, small of stature, and feeble in constitution, whom his father destined to be one of the great lights of tauromachia. The tavern-keeper, a great admirer of Gallardo and of all celebrated espadas, had quite made up his mind to this.

"The lad is worth something," he said. "You know, Se?or Juan, that I understand something about these matters, and I am quite willing to spend a bit of money to give him a profession ... but he wants a 'padrino'[103] if he is to be pushed, and there could be no one better than yourself. If you would only arrange a novillada in which the youngster could kill! Crowds of people would go, and I would bear all the expenses."

This readiness to "bear all the expenses" to help the lad on in his career had already caused the tavern-keeper heavy losses. But he still persisted, being supported by that commercial spirit which made him overlook the failures, in the hope of the enormous gains his son would make when he was a full-fledged matador.

The poor boy, who in his early years had shown a passion for bull-fighting, like most boys of his class, now found himself a prisoner to his father's tyrannical will. The latter had thoroughly believed in his vocation, thinking the boy's want of dash, laziness; and his fear, want of enterprise. A cloud of parasites, low class amateurs,[Pg 289] obscure toreros whose only remembrances of the past were their pigtails, who drank gratuitously at the tavern-keeper's expense, and begged small loans in return for their advice, formed a kind of deliberative assembly, whose object was to make known to the world this bull-fighting star, now lying hidden in Las Ventas.

The tavern-keeper, without consulting his son, had organized corridas in Tetuan and Vallecas, always "bearing all the expenses." These outlying Plazas were open to all those who wished to be gored or trampled by bulls, under the eyes of a few hundred spectators. But those amusements were not to be had for nothing. To enjoy the pleasure of being rolled over in the sand, to have his breeches torn to rags, and his body covered with blood and dirt, it was necessary to pay for all the seats in the Plaza, the diestro or his representative undertaking to distribute the tickets.

The enthusiastic father filled all the places with his friends, distributing the entrances amongst comrades of the guild, or poor amateurs of the sport. Moreover, he paid those who formed his son's cuadrilla lavishly, all vagabonds, peons and banderilleros, recruited from among the loafers in the Puerta del Sol, who fought in their everyday clothes, whereas the youngster was resplendent in his gala costume. Anything for the lad's career!

"He has a new gala dress made by the best tailor, who dresses Gallardo and the other matadors. Seven thousand reals it cost me. I think he ought to be fine in that!... But I would spend my last peseta to get him on. Ah! if others had a father like me!..."

The tavern-keeper stood between the barriers during the corrida, encouraging the espada by his presence, and by the flourishing of a big stick. Whenever the youngster came to rest by the wall the fat red face of[Pg 290] his father and the big knob of that terrible stick would appear like terrifying phantoms.

"Do you think I am spending my money for this? Why are you here giving yourself airs and graces like a young lady? Have some dash and enterprise, rascal. Go out into the middle and distinguish yourself. Ay! if I were only your age and not so stout...."

When the poor lad stood opposite the novillo, the muleta and rapier in his hands, with pale face and trembling legs, his father followed all his evolutions from behind the barrier. He was always before the boy's eyes like a threatening master, ready to chastise the slightest fault in the lesson.

What the poor diestro, dressed in his suit of gold and red silk, most feared, was his return home on the evenings when his father was frowning and dissatisfied.

He would enter the tavern wrapping himself in his rich and glittering cape, to hide the rags of shirt protruding through rents in his breeches, all his bones aching with tosses the young bulls had given him. His mother, a rough, coarse-faced woman, upset by her afternoon's anxious wait, would run to meet him open armed.

"Here's this coward!" roared the tavern-keeper. "He is worse than a 'maleta.' And it is for this that I have spent money!"

The terrible stick was raised furiously, and the golden suited lad, who just before had murdered two poor little bulls, endeavoured to run away, shielding his face with his arm, while his mother interposed between the two.

"Don't you see he is wounded?"

"Wounded!" exclaimed the father bitterly, regretting it was not the case. "That is for 'true' toreros. Put a few stitches in his rags, and see they are washed.... Just see how they have served the cheat!"

But in a few days the tavern-keeper had recovered his[Pg 291] equanimity. Anybody might have a bad day. He had seen famous matadors in just as bad case before the public as his boy. And he forthwith arranged fresh corridas in Toledo and Guadalajara, he, as before, "paying all the expenses."

His novillada in the Madrid Plaza was, according to the tavern-keeper, one of the most splendid on record. The espada, by a lucky accident, had killed two young bulls moderately well, and the public, who for the most part had entered free, applauded the tavern-keeper's son.

As he came out of the Plaza his father appeared at the head of a noisy troup of loafers, whom he had collected from all round the neighbourhood. The tavern-keeper was an honest man in his dealings, and he had promised to pay them fifty centimes a head if they would shout "Vive El Manitas"! till they were hoarse, and carry the glorious novillero on their shoulders as soon as he came out of the circus.

"El Manitas," still trembling from his recent perils, found himself surrounded, seized and lifted on to the shoulders of the noisy loafers, and carried in triumph from the Plaza to Las Ventas, through the Calle de Alcala, followed by the inquisitive looks of the people on the tramways, which remorselessly cut through the glorious manifestation. The father walked along with his stick under his arm, pretending to have nothing to do with it, but whenever the shouting slackened he forgot himself and ran to the head of t............