A Roman Well in RondaA Roman Well in Ronda
A Roman Well in Ronda
IX
A BULL-FIGHT
"I wish no living thing to suffer pain."—Shelley:Prometheus Unbound.
From our first crossing of the Pyrenees we were impressed, even beyond our expectation, with the Spanish passion for the bull-fight. The more cultivated Spaniards, to be sure, are usually unwilling to admit to a foreigner their pleasure in the pastime. "It is brutal," said a young physician of Madrid, as we discussed it. "It is a very painful thing to see, certainly. I go, myself, only two or three times a year, when the proceeds are to be devoted to some religious object—a charity or other holy work."
No sight is more common in streets and parks than that of a group of boys playingal toro—one urchin charging about with sticks fastened to his shoulders for horns, or with a pasteboard bull's head pulled over his ears, and others waving scarlet cloths and brandishing improvised swords and lances. It is said that in fierce Valencia youths have sometimes carried on this sport with knives for horns and swords, the spectators relishing the bloodshed too well to interfere. Not easily do such lads as these forgive the little king for crying, like the sensitive child he is, the first time he was taken to the bull-ring.
Thecorridas de toros, although denounced by some of thechief voices in Spain, are held almost a national shibboleth. Loyal supporters of the queen regent will add to their praises the sigh, "If only she loved the bull-fight!" Cavaliers and ladies fair reserve their choicest attire to grace these barbarities. It is a common saying that a Spaniard will sell his shirt to buy a ticket to the bull-ring, but whatever the deficiencies of the inner costume, the dress that meets the eye is brave in the extreme. It is recently becoming the fashion forcaballeros, especially in the north of Spain, to discard those very fetching cloaks with the vivid linings—cloaks in which Spaniards muffle their faces to the eyebrows as they tread the echoing streets of cities founded some thousand or fifteen hundred years ago. But for a good old Spanish bull-fight, the good old Spanish costumes are out in force, the bright-huedcapasand broadsombreros, and for the ladies, who also are beginning to discard the customary black mantilla for Parisian headgear, the exquisite white mantillas of early times and the largest and most richly decorated fans.
It is in such places as the grim Roman amphitheatre of Italica, whose grass-grown arena has flowed so red with martyrdoms of men and beasts, that one despairs most of Spanish ability to give up the bull-fight. It is in the air, in the soil, in the blood; a national institution, an hereditary rage. "But it is the link that holds your country bound to barbarism. The rest of the world is on the forward move. I tell you, the continuance of the bull-fight means the ruin of Spain," urged a gigantic young German, in our hearing, on his Spanish friend. The slight figure of the Madrileño shook with anger. "And I tellyou" he choked, "that Spain would rather perish with the bull-fight than survive without it."Isabel la Católica, who earnestly strove to put down these savage contests, wrote at last to her Father Confessor that the task was too hard for her. The "Catholic Kings" could take Granada, unify Spain, establish the Inquisition, expel Moors and Jews, and open the Americas; but they could not abolish bull-fighting. Nor was Pius V, with his denial of Christian burial to all who fell in the arena, and his excommunication for princes who permittedcorridas de torosin their dominions, more successful. The papal bull, like the bulls of flesh and blood, was inevitably overthrown.
Spanish legend likes to name the Cid as the firsttorero.
"Troth it goodly was and pleasantTo behold him at their head,All in mail on Bavieca,And to hear the words he said."
"Troth it goodly was and pleasant
To behold him at their head,
All in mail on Bavieca,
And to hear the words he said."
In mediæval times the sport was not without chivalric features. Knights fought for honor, where professionals now fight forpesetas. When the great Charles killed a bull with his own lance in honor of the birth of Philip II, the favor of the Austrian dynasty was secured. The Bourbons looked on the sport more coldly, but as royalty and nobility withdrew, the people pressed to the fore. Out of the hardy Spanish multitude rose a series of masters,—Romero the shoemaker, who, in general, gave to the art its modern form; Martincho the shepherd, who, seated in a chair with his feet bound, would await the charging brute; Cándido, who would face the bull in full career and escape by leaping to its forehead and over its back; Costillares, who invented an ingenious way of getting in the death-stroke; the famous Pepe Hillo, who, likeCándido, perished in the ring; a second Romero, said to have killed five thousand six hundred bulls; Montés the brick-layer, and a bloody band of followers. Andalusia is—alas!—the classic soil of the bull-fight, as every peasant knows, and Seville the top of Andalusia.
"I have a handsome lover,Too bold to fear the Devil,And he's the besttoreroIn all the town of Seville."
"I have a handsome lover,
Too bold to fear the Devil,
And he's the besttorero
In all the town of Seville."
The extravagance of the popular enthusiasm for thesefiestas de torosis often ridiculed on the stage, where dramas dealing with bull-fighting, especially if they bring in the heroes of the arena, Pepe Hillo, Romero, Costillares, are sure to take. Onezarzuelarepresents a rheumatic oldaficionado, or devotee of the sport, trying, with ludicrous results, to screw his courage to the point of facing the bull. Another spends its fun on a Madrid barber, who is likewise a brain-turned patron of the ring. Disregarding the shrill protests of his wife, he lavishes all his time, love, and money on thecorridasand encourages his daughter'snovio, an honest young paper-hanger, to throw over his trade and learn totorear. After two years of the provincial arenas, the aspirant, nicknamed in the ring The Baby, has nothing but torn clothes and bruises to show for his career, and his sweetheart, eager to recall him from the hazardous profession, vows a waxen bull, large as life, to the Virgin, in case he returns to papering, with its humble security and its regularity of wages. Mary hears. On that great occasion, The Baby's début at Madrid, the barber, who has just been lucky in the lottery,rents for him a gorgeous suit of second-hand finery, but in thePlaza de Torosnot even a rose-and-silver jacket can shield a quaking heart. The Baby is a coward born, and from the first rush of the first bull comes off with a bloody coxcomb, crying out his shame on the shoulder of his Pilar, who shall henceforth have him all her own.
The little artist and I went into Spain with the firm determination not to patronize the bull-fight. Half our resolution we kept,—her half. Wherever we turned we encountered suggestions of thecorrida. Spanish newspapers, even the most serious, devote columns toLos Toros. Bull-fighting has its special publications, asEl TorilandEl Toreo Cómico, and its special dialect. On the morning after a holy day the newspapers seem actually smeared with the blood of beasts. In the bull-fight season, from Easter to All Saints,corridasare held every Sunday in all the cities of southern and central Spain, while the smaller towns and villages butcher as many bulls as they can possibly afford. The May and June that I passed in the capital gave me a peculiar abhorrence of the Madrid Sunday,—that feverish excitement everywhere; the rattle of all those extra omnibuses and cars with their red-tasselled mules in full gallop for thePlaza de Toros; that sense of furious struggle and mortal agony hanging over the city all through the slow, hot afternoon; those gaping crowds pressing to greet thetoreros, a gaudy-suited company, on their triumphal return in open carriages; that eager discussion of the day's tragedy at every street-corner and from seat to seat along thepaseos, even at our own dainty dinner table and on our own balconies under the rebuking stars. At this strange Sabbath service the Infanta Isabel, whose mother's birth wascelebrated by the slaying of ninety-nine bulls, is a regular attendant, occupying the royal box and wearing the national colors. A French bull-fighter, visiting the Spanish capital, was invited by the Infanta to an audience and presented with a diamond pin. Not even the public mourning for Castelar could induce Madrid to forego thecorridaon that Sunday just before his burial. Past the very senate-house where his body lay in state rolled the aristocratic landaus, whose ladies displayed the gala-wear of white mantillas.
But the Sundays were not enough. Every Catholic feast-day called for its sacrifice. Granada could not do fitting honor to Corpus Christi with less than three "magnificas corridas." The royal saint of Aranjuez, Fernando, must have his pious birthday kept by an orgy of blood. At thefiestaof Christ's Ascension all Spain was busy staining his earth with the life-stream of His creatures. Valladolid was, indeed, ashamed to have torn to death only seven horses, but Segovia rejoiced in an expert who sat at his work and killed his bulls with drawing-room ease. Bordeaux improved the occasion, with aid of two celebrated Spanishespadas, by opening a FrenchPlaza de Toros, and Valencia had the excitement of sending to the infirmary onetorerowith a broken leg and another with a crushed foot. Such accidents are by no means uncommon. Amatadorwas mortally wounded in the Valencia ring that summer, abanderillerowas trampled at the Escorial, and those favorite stabbers, Reverte and Bombita, were themselves stabbed by avenging horns.
If there is a temporary dearth of saint days, Spanish ingenuity will nevertheless find excuse forcorridas. Bulls must bleed for holy charity,—for hospitals, foundling asylums, thefamilies of workmen out on strike. If the French squadron is at Cadiz, hospitality demands a bull-fight. In the interests of popular education, an historicalcorridawas arranged, with instructedtorerosto display the special styles of bull-killing that have prevailed from the Cid to Guerrita. Again, as a zoölogical by-play, an elephant was pitted against the bulls. This, too, had precedent, for did not Philip IV once keep his birthday by turning in among the horned herd a lion, a tiger, a camel, and a bear, "all Noah's ark and Æsop's fables"? A bull of Xarama vanquished them every one and received the gracious reward of being shot dead by Philip himself.
It was on a Wednesday afternoon, at one of the three grandcorridasof the SevilleFeria, that I became an accomplice in this Spanish crime. Our friends in Seville, people of cultivation and liberal views, had declared from the first that we could have no conception of Spanish life and character without sharing in the nationalfiesta. "We ourselves are not enthusiasts," they said. "In fact, we disapprove the bull-fight. We regard it as demoralizing to the community at large. It is, nevertheless, a thing scientific, artistic, heroic,Spanish. Besides, a large portion of the proceeds goes to charity. We do not attend thecorridas, except now and then, especially when we have foreign guests who wish to see them. Before going they all regard bull-fighting as you do, as an atrocity, a barbarity, but invariably they return from thePlaza de Torosfilled with delight and admiration. They say their previous ideas were all wrong, that it is a noble and splendid spectacle, that they want to see it again and again, that they cannot be too grateful to us for having delivered them from prejudice."
I winced at the word. I have a prejudice against being prejudiced, and to the bull-fight I went.
My yielding came too late for securing places in a box or in any part of the house from which one can make exit during the performance. Our gory-looking tickets admitted us to the uppermost row of high, whitewashed, stone seats of the circus proper, where we were soon inextricably wedged in by the human mass that formed around and below us. The hour of waiting passed merrily enough. The open amphitheatre, jammed to its full capacity of fourteen thousand, lay half in brilliant sunlight and half in creeping shadow. Above us arched the glowing blue sky of Seville, pricked by the rosy Giralda, and from time to time a strong-winged bird flew over. The great arena, strewn with yellow sand, was enclosed by a dark red barrier of wood, about the height of a man. This was encircled, at a little distance, by a more secure and higher wall of stone. The concourse was largely composed of men, both roughs and gentles, but there was no lack of ladies, elegantly dressed, nor of children. Two sweet little girls in white-feathered hats were just in front of us, dancing up and down to relieve the thrills of expectancy. White mantillas, pinned with jewels, bent from the boxes, while the daughters of the people dazzled the eye with their festival display of Manila shawls, some pure white, some with colored figures on a white ground or a black, and some a rainbow maze of capricious needle-work. The rich-hued blossoms of Andalusia were worn in the hair and on the breast. The sunny side of the circus was brightly dotted by parasols, orange, green, vermilion, and fans in all the cardinal colors twinkled like a shivered kaleidoscope. The men's black eyesglittered under those broadsombreros, white or drab, while they puffed their cigarettes with unwonted energy, scattering the ashes in soft gray showers over their neighbors on the seats below. The tumult of voices had a keener note of excitement than I had yet heard in Spain, and was so loud and insistent as often to drown the clashing music of the band. The cries of various venders swelled the mighty volume of noise. Water-sellers in vivid blouses and sashes, a red handkerchief twisted around the neck, on the left shoulder a cushion of folded carpeting for the shapely, yellow-brown jar, and a smart tin tray, holding two glasses, corded to the belt, went pushing through the throng. Criers of oranges, newspapers, crabs, and cockles, almond cakes, fans, and photographs of thetoreros, strove with all the might of their lungs against the universal uproar.
"Crece el entusiasmo;Crece la alegría;Todo es algazara;Todo es confusión."
"Crece el entusiasmo;
Crece la alegría;
Todo es algazara;
Todo es confusión."
A tempest of applause marked the entrance in a box above of a popularprima donna, who draped a resplendent carmine scarf over the railing before her seat. Immediately the complete circuit of the rail was ablaze with color, cloaks and shawls instantly converting themselves into tapestry.
At last two attendants entered the arena, walked up to a hydrant in the centre, fastened on a hose, and watered the great circle. They pulled out the hydrant and raked sand over the hole. Simple as these actions were, a dreadful quiet fell on all the circus.
A trumpet blared. Mountedalguaciles, or police, tricked out in ancient Spanish costume, on blue saddles, and with tall blue plumes in their hats, rode in and cleared the arena of all stragglers. A door opened, and forth issued the full circus troupe, making a fine show of filigree, and urging their wretched old nags to a last moment of equine pride and spirit. Amid roars of welcome, they flaunted across the sanded enclosure and saluted the presiding officer. He dropped the key of thetoril, that dark series of cells into which the bulls had been driven some hours before. Analguacilcaught the key and handed it to thetorilero, who ran with it toward a second door, ominously surmounted by a great bull's head. Then there was a twinkling of the pink stockings and black sandals. Most of the gay company leaped the barrier, and even thechuloswho remained in the ring placed themselves within convenient distance of the rail. Some of thepicadoresgalloped out, but a few awaited the coming charge, their long pikes in rest. The door on which all eyes were bent flew open, and a bellowing red bull rushed in. The fierce, bloodthirsty, horrible yell that greeted him checked his impetuous onset. For a few seconds the creature stood stock-still, glaring at the scene. Heaven knows what he thought of us. He had had five perfect years of life on the banks of the Guadalquivír,—one baby year by his mother's side, one year of sportive roving with his mates, and then had come the trial of his valor. He had found all the herdsmen gathered at the ranch one morning, and, nevertheless, flattered himself that he had evaded those hateful pikes,garrochas, that were always goading him back when he would sally out to explore the great green world. At allevents, here he was scampering alone across the plain. But promptly two horsemen were at his heels, and one of these, planting a bluntgarrochaon his flank, rolled the youngster over. Up again, panting with surprise and indignation, he felt a homesick impulse to get back to the herd, but the second horseman was full in his path. So much the worse for the horseman! The mettlesome young bull lowered his horns and charged the obstacle, only to be thrown back with a smarting shoulder. If he had yielded then, his would have been the quiet yoke and the long, dull life of labor, but he justified his breed; he charged anew, and so proved himself worthy of the arena. Three more years of the deep, green river-reeds and the sweet Andalusian sunshine, three years of free, far range and glad companionship, and then the end. His days had been exempt from burden only to save his wild young strength for the final tragedy. One summer morning those traitors known as decoy-oxen, with bells about the neck, came trotting into the herd. The noble bulls, now at their best hour of life, the glory of their kind, welcomed these cunning guests with frank delight and interest, and were easily induced to follow them and their tinkling bells across the rich pastures, along rough country roads, even to the city itself and the fatalPlaza de Toros. The herdsmen with their ready pikes galloped behind the drove, and everywhere along the way peasants and townsfolk would fall in for a mile or two to help in urging the excited animals onward to their cruel doom.
In that strange, maddening sea of faces, that hubbub of hostile voices, the bull, as soon as his blinking eyes had effected the change from the darkness of thetorilto theglaring light and gaudy colors of the coliseum, caught sight of a horseman with the familiar pike. Here was something that he recognized and hated. Lowering his head, the fiery brute dashed with a bellow at that tinselled figure. Ah, the pike had never been so sharp before! It went deep into his shoulder, but could not hold him back. He plunged his horns, those mighty spears, into the body of the helpless, blindfolded horse, which thepicador, whose jacket was well padded and whose legs were cased in iron, deliberately offered to his wrath. The poor horse shrieked, plunged, reeled, and fell, thechulosdeftly dragging away the armored rider, while the bull ripped and trampled that quivering carcass, for whose torment no man cared, until it was a crimson, formless heap.
Such sickness swept over me that I did not know what followed. When I looked again, two bloody masses that had once been horses disfigured the arena, and the bull, stuck all over like a hedge-hog with derisive, many-colored darts, had gone down under Guerrita's steel.
My friends, observing with concern that I was not enjoying myself as much as they had promised, tried to divert my attention to the technical features of their ghastly game. It was really, they explained, a drama in three acts. It is the part of the mountedpicadorto draw off the first rage and vigor of the bull, weakening him, but not slaying him, by successive wounds. Then the jauntybanderilleros, the streamers of whose darts must correspond in color with their costumes, supply a picturesque and amusing element, a comic interlude. Finally anespada, ormatador, advances alone to despatch the tortured creature. The death-blow can be dealtonly in one of several fashions, established by rule and precedent, and theespadawho is startled into an unprofessional thrust reaps a bitter harvest of scoffs and hisses.
A team of gayly-caparisoned mules with jingling bells had meanwhile trundled away the mangled bodies of the slaughtered animals, fresh sand had been thrown over the places slippery with blood, and the band pealed the entrance of the second bull. This was a demon, black as a coal, with a marvellous pride and spirit that availed him nothing. Horse after horse crashed down before his furious rushes, while the circus, drunk with glee, shouted for more victims and more and more. It was a massacre. At last our hideous greed was glutted, and thebanderillerostook their turn in baiting the now enfeebled but undaunted bull. Wildly he shook himself, the fore half of his body already a flood of crimson, to throw off the ignominy of those stinging darts. Thechulosfretted and fooled him with their waving cloaks of red and yellow, till at last the creature grew hushed and sullen. A strain of music announced that thematadorFuentes was asking beneath the president's box permission to kill the bull. For my part, I gave the bull permission to kill the man. Fuentes, all pranked out in gray and gold, holding his keen blade behind him and flourishing a scarlet square of cloth, swinging from a rod, themuleta, advanced upon the brute. That bleeding body shook with a new access of rage, and the otherespadasdrew near and stood at watch. But even before a blow was struck the splendid, murdered creature sank to his knees, staggered up once more, sank again with crimson foam upon his mouth, and the music clashed jubilantly while Fuentes drove the weapon home. And again the team of mules,with foolish tossing of their bright-ribboned heads, jerked and jolted their dead kindred off the scene.
The third bull galloped in with a roar that was heard far beyond thePlazaand gored his first two horses so promptly and so frightfully that, while the hapless beasts still struggled in their agony, the amphitheatre howled with delirious joy. Severalcapaswere caught away on those swift, effective horns, and onepicadorwas hurt. But the rain of darts teased and bewildered the bull to the point of stupidity, although he was dangerous yet.
"Dark is his hide on either side, but the blood within doth boil;And the dun hide glows, as if on fire, as he paws to the turmoil.His eyes are jet, and they are set in crystal rings of snow;But now they stare with one red glare of brass upon the foe."
"Dark is his hide on either side, but the blood within doth boil;
And the dun hide glows, as if on fire, as he paws to the turmoil.
His eyes are jet, and they are set in crystal rings of snow;
But now they stare with one red glare of brass upon the foe."
It was the turn of Bombita, a dandy in dark-green suit with silver trimmings; but his comrades, pale and intent, stood not far off and from time to time, by irritating passes, drew the bull's wrath upon themselves, wearying him ever more and more, until at last Bombita had his chance to plant a telling blow.
Would it never end? Again the fatal door swung open, and the fourth bull bounded in to play his tragic rôle. He was of choicest pedigree, but the utter strangeness of the scene turned his taurine wits. He made distracted and aimless rushes hither and thither, unheeding the provocations of the horsemen, until he came upon the spot drenched with his predecessor's life-blood. He pawed away the hasty covering of sand, sniffed at that ominous stain, and then, throwing up his head with a strange bellow, bolted back to the door bywhich he had entered, and turned tail to the arena. The fourteen thousand, crazy with rage, sprang to their feet, shook their fists, called himcow. Thechulosbrandished their cloaks about his horns; men leaned over from the barrier and prodded him with staffs. Finally, in desperation, he turned on the nearest horse, rent it and bore it down. Thepicador, once set up by thechulosupon his stiff, iron-cased legs, his yellow finery streaked with red from his lacerated horse, tugged savagely at the bridle to force that dying creature to a second stand. One attendant wrenched it by the tail, another beat it viciously over the face; the all-enduring beast, his entrails swinging from a crimson gash, struggled to his feet. Thepicadormounted, drove in the spurs, and the horse, rocking and pitching, accomplished a few blind paces toward those dripping horns that horribly awaited him. But to the amazement and scandal of theaficionados, the circus raised a cry of protest, and the discomfited rider sprang down in the very moment when his horse fell to rise no more. Achulo, at his leisurely convenience, quieted those kicking hoofs by a stab,—the one drop of mercy in that ocean of human outrage.
Straw-colored darts, wine-colored darts, sky-colored darts, were pricking the bull to frenzy. I wished he had any half-dozen of his enemies in a clear pasture. Those glittering dragon-flies were always just out of reach, but he stumbled on the sodden shape of the unhappy horse and tossed it again and again, making the poor carcass fling up its head and arch its neck in ghastly mockery of life. Cowardice avails a bull as little as courage. This sorry fighter had been deeply pierced by thegarrochas, and now, as he galloped clumsilyabout the arena, in unavailing efforts to escape from his tormentors, his violent, foolish plunges made the dark blood flow the faster. It was Guerrita, Guerrita the adored, Guerrita in gold-laced jacket and violet trousers, who struck the ultimate blow, and so cleverly thatsombrerosand cigarettes, oranges and pocket-flasks, came raining, amid furies of applause, into the arena. This was such a proud moment as he had dreamed of long ago in the Cordova slaughter-house, when, the little son of the slaughter-house porter, he had stolen from his bed at midnight to playal torowith the calves, and then and there had solemnly dedicated himself to the glorious profession. Now the master of his art and the idol of all Spain, easily making his seventy-five thousand dollars a year, earning, in fact, three thousand on that single afternoon, Guerrita little foresaw that with the coming autumn he should go on pilgrimage toLa Virgen del Pilar, and before her beloved shrine at Saragossa cut off his bull-fighter's pigtail and renounce the ring.
The fifth bull was black as ebony. He dashed fearlessly into the arena, charged and wheeled and tossed his horns in the splendor of his strength, sending every red-vestedchuloscrambling over the wall. Then he backed to the middle of the sanded circle, snorting and pawing the earth. Another instant, and the nearest horse and rider went crashing against the barrier. Thepicador, with a bruised face, forced up the gasping horse, mounted and rode it, the beast treading out its entrails as it went, to meet a second charge. But the swaying horse fell dead before it reached those lowered horns again. The nextpicador, too, went down heavily under his jade and received an awkward sprain. He mounted once more, to show that he could, and the circus cheered him, buthis horse, torn to death, could not bear his weight. He gave it an angry push with the foot as he left it writhing in its life-blood. This whirlwind of a bull, who shook off all but one of thebanderillas, mortified even thematadores. Disregarding the red rag, he rushed at Fuentes himself. The nimbletoreroleapt aside, but the bull's horn struck his sword and sent it spinning half across the arena. His comrades immediately ran, with wavingcapasand bright steel, to his aid, but that too intelligent bull, fighting for his life, kept his foes at bay until the circus hissed with impatience. Thetoreros, visibly nettled, gathered closer and closer, but had to play that death-game cautiously. This bull was dangerous. The coliseum found him tedious. He took too long in dying. Stabbed again and again and again, he yet agonized to his feet and shook those crimsoned horns at his tormentors, who still hung back. It really was dull. Thematadoresbuzzed about him, worrying his dying sight, but he stood sullen in their midst, refusing the charges to which they tempted him, guarding his last drops of strength, and, cardinal offence in atoro, holding his head too high for the professional stroke. His vital force was ebbing. Red foam dripped from his mouth. That weary hoof no longer pawed the earth. The people shouted insults even to their pet Guerrita, but Guerrita, like the rest, stood baffled. At last that formidable figure, no longer black, but a red glaze of blood and sweat and foam, fell in a sudden convulsion. Then his valiant murderers sprang upon him, the stabs came thick and fast, and the jingling mule-team pranced in to form his funeral cortège.
One more,—the sixth. I was long past indignation, past any acuteness of pain, simply sickened through body and souland unutterably wearied with this hideous monotony of slaughter. The last bull, a white star shining on his black forehead, tore into the arena, raced all about the circle, and struck with amazing rapidity wherever he saw a foe. Three horses were down, were up again, and were forced, all with trailing intestines, to a second charge. The bull flashed like a thunderbolt from one to another, rending and digging with his savage horns, until three mangled bodies writhed on the reddened sand, and stabbers watched their chances to run forward and quiet with the knife the horrible beating of those hoofs in air. The circus yelled delight. It had all been the work of a moment,—a brave bull, a great sensation! For the performers it was rather too much of a good thing. Those disembowelled carcasses cluttered up the arena. The scattered entrails were slippery under foot. The dart-throwers hastened to the next act of the tragedy. Theirs was a subtlety too much for the fury-fuddled wits of that mighty, blundering brute. He galloped to and fro, spending his strength in useless charges and, a score of times, ignoring the men to hook wildly at their brandished strips of colored cloth. The darts had been planted and he was losing blood. Thematadorwent to his work, but the uncivil bull did not make it easy for him. Bombita could not get in a handsome blow. The house began to hoot and taunt. A stentorian voice called to him to "kill that bull to-morrow." Exasperated by the laughter that greeted this sally, Bombita drove his Toledo blade to its mark. While the final scene of general stabbing was going on, boys, men, even women vaulted into the arena, played over again with one another the more memorable incidents, ran to inspect those shapeless carcasses of what Godcreated horses, and escorted the funeral train of the bull, one small boy riding in gleeful triumph on top of the great black body, harmless and still at last. As we passed out by a hallway where the dead animals had been dragged, we had to pick our way through pools of blood and clots of entrails. Thus by the road of the shambles we came forth from hell.
The GiraldaThe Giralda
The Giralda
"I do not understand at all," sincerely protested my Spanish host, disconcerted by the continued nausea and horror of red dreams which, justly enough, pursued me for weeks after. "It was a very favorablecorridafor a beginner,—no serious accident, no use of the fire-darts, no houghing of the bull with the demi-lune, nothing objectionable. And, after all, animals are only animals; they are not Christians."
"Who were the Christians in that circus?" I asked. "How could devils have been worse than we?"
He half glanced toward the morning paper but was too kindly to speak his thought. It was not necessary. I had read the paper, which gave half a column to a detailed account of a recent lynching, with torture, in the United States.
X
GYPSIES
"'Life is sweet, brother.'"'Do you think so?'"'Think so!—There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'"'I would wish to die.'"'You talk like a gorgio—which is the same as talking like a fool—were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die, indeed!—A Rommany Chal would wish to live forever!'"'In sickness, Jasper?'"'There's the sun and stars, brother.'"'In blindness, Jasper?'"'There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live forever.Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother!'"—George Borrow.
"'Life is sweet, brother.'
"'Do you think so?'
"'Think so!—There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'
"'I would wish to die.'
"'You talk like a gorgio—which is the same as talking like a fool—were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die, indeed!—A Rommany Chal would wish to live forever!'
"'In sickness, Jasper?'
"'There's the sun and stars, brother.'
"'In blindness, Jasper?'
"'There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live forever.Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother!'"
—George Borrow.
No foreigner has known the Zingali better than George Borrow, the linguistic Englishman, who could speak Rommany so well that gypsies all over Europe took him for a brother. In the employ of the English Bible Society, he spent some five adventurous years in Spain, wandering through the wilds and sharing the life of shepherds, muleteers, even the fiercegitanos. As he found the Spanish gypsies half a century ago, so, in essentials, are they still—the men jockeys, tinkers, and blacksmiths, thewomen fortune tellers and dancers, the children the most shameless little beggars of all the Peninsula. Yet there has been an improvement.
Thegitanosare not such ruffians as of old, nor even such arrant thieves, although it would still be unwise to trust them within call of temptation.
"There runs a swine down yonder hill,As fast as e'er he can,And as he runs he crieth still,'Come, steal me, Gypsyman.'"
"There runs a swine down yonder hill,
As fast as e'er he can,
And as he runs he crieth still,
'Come, steal me, Gypsyman.'"
Still more compromising is the Christmas carol:—
"Into the porch of BethlehemHave crept the gypsies wild,And they have stolen the swaddling clothesOf the new-born Holy Child."Oh, those swarthy gypsies!What won't the rascals dare?They have not left the Christ ChildA single shred to wear."
"Into the porch of BethlehemHave crept the gypsies wild,And they have stolen the swaddling clothesOf the new-born Holy Child.
"Into the porch of Bethlehem
Have crept the gypsies wild,
And they have stolen the swaddling clothes
Of the new-born Holy Child.
"Oh, those swarthy gypsies!What won't the rascals dare?They have not left the Christ ChildA single shred to wear."
"Oh, those swarthy gypsies!
What won't the rascals dare?
They have not left the Christ Child
A single shred to wear."
There are wealthy gypsies, whose wives and daughters go arrayed with the utmost elegance of fashion, in several Spanish cities. Seville has her gypsy lawyer, but her gypsy bull-fighter, who died two years ago, was held to reflect even greater credit on the parent stock.
By law the gypsies are now established as Spaniards, with full claim to Spanish rights and privileges—Nuevos Castellanos, as they have been called since the day when Spain bethought her of these Ishmaels as "food for powder"and subjected them to the regular military draft. Even in Granada, where the gypsy community still lives in semi-barbarism, there are hopeful signs. Thegitanosdrive a sharp trade in donkeys, but their forge fires, gleaming far up the Albaicín in the evening, testify to their industry. The recent opening by the municipality of schools for the gypsy children has already wrought a marked change for the better. Some half-dozen dirty little palms, outstretched forcinco centimos, pester the stranger to-day where scores used to torment him, and the mothers take pride in the literary accomplishments of their tawny broods. On one occasion, when, having, as the Spanish say, "clean pockets," I firmly declined to see a small gypsy girl dance or hear her sing, the mother assured me, as a last greedy expedient, that "the child could pray."
On the Alhambra hill the gypsies, who scent tourists from afar and troop thither, on the track of newly arrived parties, like wolves to their banquet, are picturesque figures enough, the men in peaked hats, spangled jackets, and sashes of red silk, the women with bright handkerchiefs bound over their raven hair, large silver earrings, gay bodices, and short, flounced petticoats.
There is one oldgitano, in resplendent attire, who haunts the Alhambra doors and introduces himself to visitors, with bows queerly compounded of condescension and supplication, as the King of the Gypsies, modestly offering his photograph for apeseta. If you turn to your attendant Spaniard and ask,sotto voce, "But is this truly the Gypsy King?" you will receive a prompt affirmative, while the quick-witted old masquerader strikes a royal attitude, rolls his eyes prodigiously,and twirls his three-cornered hat at arm's length above his head, until its tinsel ornaments sparkle like crown jewels. But no sooner is his Majesty well out of hearing than your guide hastens to eat his own words. "No, no, no! He is not the King of the Gypsies, but he is a gypsy, yes, and it is better not to have his ill will."
Whether this hardened pretender could cast the evil eye or not, we never knew, for having bought two of his pictures at the first onset, we suffered ever afterward the sunshine of his favor. In fact we often made a wide detour rather than pass him on the hill, for he would spring to his feet at our remotest approach and stand bowing like an image of perpetual motion, his hat brandished high in air, until our utmost in the way of answering nods and smiles seemed by contrast sheer democratic incivility.
The swarthy faces and glittering eyes of the gypsies meet one everywhere in the Granada streets, but to see them in their own precinct it is necessary to take off your watch, empty your pockets of all but small silver and coppers, and go to the Albaicín. This hill, parted from the Alhambra by the deep ravine of the gold-bearing Darro, was in Moorish times the chosen residence of the aristocracy. Still Arabian arches span the gorge, and many of the toppling old houses that lean over the swift, mountain-born current, shabby as they look to the passer-by, are beautiful within with arabesque and fretwork, carven niches, delicate columns and open patios, where fountains still gush and orange blossoms still shed fragrance. Such degenerate palaces are often occupied by the better class of gypsies, those who traffic in horses, as well as in donkeys, while their women, grouped in the courtsand doorways, embroider with rainbow wools, in all fantastic patterns, the stout mantles of the Andalusian mountaineers.
As we climbed the Albaicín, fronting as it does the hill of the Alhambra, the exceeding beauty of the view at first claimed all our power of seeing. Below was the gray sweep of the city and beyond the fruitful plain of Granada, its vivid green shading into a far-off dimness like the sea. Just opposite us rose the fortress of the Alhambra, a proud though broken girdle of walls and towers, while in the background soared the dazzling snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada, glistening with unbearable splendor under the intense blue of the Andalusian sky.
In the midst of our rhapsodies I became aware of a shrill voice at my feet, a persistent tug at my skirts, and reluctantly dropped my eyes on a comely little gypsy lass lying along a sunny ledge and imperiously demandingcinco centimos.
"Now what would you do withcinco centimosif you had them?"
With the universal beggar gesture she pointed to her mouth. "Buy a rusk. I am starving. I am already dead of hunger."
Crossing her hands upon her breast, she closed her eyes in token of her mortal extremity, but instantly flashed them open again to note the effect.
"Your cheeks are not the cheeks of famine."
At a breath the young sorceress sucked them in and succeeded, plump little person though she was, in looking so haggard and so woe-begone that our political economy broke down in laughter, and we gave her the coveted cent in return for her transformation act.
Off she darted, with her wild locks flying in the wind, and was back in a twinkling, a circlet of bread suspended from her arm. She tripped along beside us for the rest of the afternoon, using the rusk sometimes as a hoop, sometimes as a crown, sometimes as a peephole. She tossed it, sang through it, dandled it, stroked it, and occasionally, while the bread approximated more and more in hue to her own gypsy complexion, took an artistic nibble, dotting the surface with a symmetrical curve of bites. It was not mere food to her; it was luxury, it was mirth—like a Lord Mayor's feast or a Delmonico breakfast.
Following theCamino del Sacro Monte, marked by many crosses, our attention was more and more withdrawn from the majestic views spread out before us to the gypsies, whose cave dwellings lined the way. Burrowing into the earth, from the midst of thickets of prickly pear, are these strange abodes, whose chimneys rise abruptly out of the green surface of the hillside. Dens as they are, the best of them possess some decencies. Flaps of cloth serve them for doors, their peering fronts are whitewashed, they are furnished with a stool or two, a box of tools or clothing, a few water-jars, a guitar, and, in the farther end of the lair, a family bedstead, or more often a heap of dirty sheepskins. Cooking tins, bottles, saddles, and coils of rope hang on the rough walls; there may be a shelf of amulets and toys for sale, and the indispensable pot ofpucherosimmers over a handful of fire.
Out from these savage homes swarmed a whining, coaxing, importunate horde of sly-eyed women and an impish rabble of children. Young and old clutched at us with unclean hands, clung to us with sinewy brown arms, begged, flattered,demanded, and dragged us bodily into their hill. We felt as if we had gone back to German fairy tales and had fallen into the evil grip of the gnomes. Hardly could escort, carriage, and a reckless rain of coppers break the spell. We were forced to taste their repulsive messes, to cross witch palms with silver, to buy even the roadside weeds the urchins gathered before our eyes. We were birds for the plucking, sheep for the shearing. Only when we had turned our pockets inside out to show that we had not a "little dog" left, were we suffered to go free, followed, doubtless, by the curses of Egypt, because we had yielded such poor picking.
In Seville, too, the gypsies have their own quarter, but in proportion as Seville is a gentler city than Granada, so are the looks and manners of her gypsy population more attractive. Crossing the yellow Guadalquivír by the bridge of Isabel Segunda, we come immediately on the picturesque, dark-visaged figures, with their uneffaced suggestion of wildness, of freedom, of traditions apart from the common humdrum of humanity. The boy, clad in one fluttering garment, who is perilously balancing his slender brown body on the iron rail; the bright-kerchiefed young mother, thrusting her tiny black bantling into our faces; the silent, swarthy men who lean along the bridge side, lithe even in their lounging;—all have a latent fierceness in their look. Their eyes are keen as knives—strange eyes, whose glitter masks the depth. But as we go on into the potter's suburb of Triana, into the thick of the gypsy life, we are not more seriously molested than by the continual begging, nor is this the rough, imperious begging of Granada; a flavor of Sevillian grace and fun has passed upon it. Offer this bush-headed lad, pleading starvation, the orange he hasjust tossed away, and he will double up over the joke and take to his little bare heels. Give to the fawning sibyl who insists on telling your fortune a red rose for her hair, and the chances are that she will rest content. But the time to see the gypsies in their glory is during the three days and nights of theFeria.
On the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of April Seville annually keeps, on thePrado de San Sebastian, where the Inquisition used to light its fires, the blithest of spring festivals. TheFeriais a fair, but much more than a fair. There are droves upon droves of horses, donkeys, cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs. There are rows upon rows of booths with toys, booths with nuts and candies, booths with the gay-handled Albacete knives and daggers. There are baskets upon baskets of rainbow fans, mimic fighting cocks, oranges, and other cheap Sevillian specialties. Cooling drinks are on sale at every turn, but there is no drunkenness. There are thousands and tens of thousands of people in motion, but there is no bustling, no elbowing, no rudeness of pressure. Dainty little children wander alone in that tremendous throng. The order and tranquillity that prevail by day and night in this multitude of merrymakers render it possible for theFeriato be what it is. For during these enchanted April hours even the noblest families of Seville come forth from the proud seclusion of their patios and live incasetas, little rustic houses that are scarcely more than open tents, exposed to the gaze of every passer-by.
A lofty bridge, crossed by two broad flights of stairs and tapering to a tower, stands at the intersection of the three chiefFeriaavenues. The bridge is brilliantly illuminated bynight, and close-set globes of gas, looped on running tubes along both sides of these three festal streets, pour floods of light into thecasetas. Chinese lanterns in red and yellow abound, and lines of banner-staffs flaunt the Spanish colors. Thecasetasare usually constructed of white canvas on a framework of light-brown fretwood, though the materials are sometimes more durable.
Clubhouses are large and elaborate, and individual taste varies the aspect of the private tents. The more important families of Seville own theircasetas, but in general these airy abodes are rented from year to year, the price for the three days of theFeriaranging from twenty-five dollars on the central avenue to five dollars for the more remote houselets on the two streets that branch off at right angles. The numerous byways are occupied by cafés, booths, penny shows, and the like, the gypsies having one side of a lane to themselves. The other side is given over to circus-rings, merry-go-rounds, cradle-swings marked "For Havana," "For Manila," "For Madrid," dancing dwarfs, braying bands, caged bulls, and tents provided with peepholes through which one may see "The Glorious Victory of the Spanish Troops at Santiago," and other surprising panoramas of the recent war. These are in high favor with soldiers and small boys, whose black heads bump together at every aperture.
Such attractions are especially potent over the country folk, who come jogging into Seville during fair time, mounted two or three together on jaded horses, sorry mules, and even on indignant little donkeys. Their peasant costumes add richly to the charm of the spectacle, and their simplicity makes them an easy spoil for the canny folk of Egypt. You seethem especially in the cool of the early morning, when trade in cattle is at its liveliest. Ten to one they have been fleeced already by thegitanos, who, out in the great meadow where the live-stock is exposed for sale, have their own corner for "dead donkeys," as the Sevillians term the decrepit old beasts that have been magically spruced up for the occasion. Cervantes has his jest at "a gypsy's ass, with quicksilver in its ears."
Then comes the turn of thegitanas, looking their prettiest, with roses in hair, and over the shoulders those captivating black silk shawls embroidered in many-colored patterns of birds and flowers. The younger enchantresses keep watch, each in front of her family tent, before whose parted curtains the more ill-favored women of the household are busy frying the crisp brownbuñuelos, a species of doughnut dear to the Spanish tooth.
As you loiter down the lane, be you wide-eyed shepherd from the provinces, or elegant grandee from Madrid, or haughty foreigner from London or Vienna, the sturdy sirens rush upon you, seize you by arm or neck, and by main force tug you into their tented prisons, from which you must gnaw your way out through a heap of hotbuñuelos. Or you may compromise on a cup of Spanish chocolate, flavored with cinnamon and thick as flannel, or perhaps win your liberty by gulping down a cupful of warm goat's milk. The prices shock the portliest purses, but at your first faint sign of protest a gathering mob of gypsies presses close with jeers and hisses, and even the frying-pan sputters contempt.
TheFeriapresents its most quiet aspect during the afternoon. Some twenty or thirty thousand of the promenadershave been drawn off by the superior attraction of the bull-fight, and others have retired for their siestas. Yet there are thousands left. This is a grand time for the children, who disport themselves in the avenues with whistles, swords, balls, kites, and other trophies from the toy booths. These little people are exquisitely dressed, often in the old Andalusian costumes, and tiny lad and tiny lass, of aristocratic look and bearing, may be seen tripping together through one of the graceful national dances in the midst of a sidewalk throng. The toddlers, too, are out, under charge of happy nursemaids.
Even the babies have been brought to the fair, and lie, contentedly sucking their rosy thumbs, in the doorways of thecasetas. The lords of these doll-houses are enjoying peaceful smokes together in the background of the open parlors, which are furnished with as many chairs as possible, a piano, and a central stand of flowers; while semicircles of silent ladies, languidly waving the most exquisite of fans, sit nearer the front, watching the ceaseless stream of pedestrians, and beyond these the double procession of carriages, which keep close rank as they advance on one side of the avenue and return on the other. It is bad form not to go to theFeriaonce at least in a carriage. Large families of limited means hire spacious vehicles resembling omnibuses, and, squeezed together in two opposite rows, drive up and down the three chief streets for hours.
There are crested landaus, with handsome horses, gay donkey-carts, decked out with wreaths and tassels, shabby cabs, sporting red and yellow ribbons on their whips, tooting coaches—every sort and kind of contrivance for relieving humanity of its own weight. There are mounted cavaliers inplenty, and occasionally, under due masculine escort, a fair-haired English girl rides by, or a group of Spanish señoras, who have come into Seville on horseback from their country homes. But all this movement is slow and dreamy, the play of the children being as gentle as the waving of the fans.
Even Gypsy Lane shares in the tranquillity of the drowsy afternoon. We were captured there almost without violence, and, while we trifled with the slightest refreshment we could find, a juvenile entertainment beguiled us of our coppers with pleasurable ease. A coquettish midget of four summers innocently danced for us the dances that are not innocent, and a wee goblin of seven, who could not be induced to perform without a cap, that he might pull it down over his bashful eyes, stamped and kicked, made stealthy approaches and fierce starts of attack through the savage hunting jigs inherited from the ancient life of the wilderness. The women swung their arms and shrilled wild tunes to urge the children on, but a second youngster who attempted one of these barbaric dances for us broke down in mid career, and, amid a chorus of screaming laughter, buried his blushes in his mother's lap. The tent had become crowded with stalwart, blackgitanos, but they were in a domestic mood, smiled on the children's antics, and eyed us with grim amusement as the women caught up from rough cradles and thrust into our arms those elfish babies of theirs. Even the infant of five days winked at us with trickery in its jet beads of vision. But so inert was gypsy enterprise that we were suffered to depart with a fewpesetasyet in our possession.
In the evening, from eight till one, theFeriais perfect Fairyland. Under the light of those clustered gas globes andbutterfly-colored lanterns pass and repass the loveliest women of the world. Beautifully clad as the señoritas have been during morning and afternoon, their evening toilets excel and crown the rest. White-robed, white-sandalled, their brown, bewitching faces peeping out from the lace folds of white mantillas, with white shawls, embroidered in glowing hues, folded over the arm, and delicate white fans in hand, they look the very poetry of maidenhood. Months of saving, weeks of stitching, these costumes may have cost, but theFeriais, above all, a marriage mart, and the Andalusian girl, usually so strictly guarded, so jealously secluded, never allowed to walk or shop alone, is now on exhibition. As these radiant forms glide along the avenues, the men who meet them coolly bend and look full into their faces, scanning line and feature with the critical air of connoisseurs. But well these cavaliers illustrate the Andalusian catch:—