The Quest Part 42

"Is that the girl?" his friend inquired.

"She's the one."

"Boy, maybe she isn't daffy over you."

And El Carnicerin, with a conceited smile, added:

"I've turned her head, all right."

Manuel could have torn out the fop's heart at that moment.

His disappointment in love made him think of leaving Senor Custodio's house.

One day he met, near the Segovia bridge, El Bizco and another ragam.u.f.fin that was with him.

They were both in tatters; El Bizco looked grimmer and more brutish than ever. He wore an old jacket through the rents of which peered his dark skin; according to what they said, they were both on their way to the intersection of Aravaca road and the Extremadura cart-road, to a spot they called the Confessionary. They expected to meet El Cura and El Hospiciano there and rob a house.

"What do you say? Will you join us?" asked El Bizco sarcastically.

"No, I won't."

"Where are you now?"

"In a house ... working."

"There's a brave fool for you! Come on, join us."

"No. I can't.... Listen, how about Vidal? Didn't you ever see him again?"

El Bizco's face turned grimmer than ever.

"I'll get even with that scoundrel. He won't escape before I carve a nice scar on his face.... But are you coming along with us or not?"

"No."

Senor Custodio's ideas had worked a strong influence upon Manuel; but since, despite this, his adventurous instincts persisted, he thought of going off to America, or becoming a sailor, or something of that sort.

CHAPTER VIII

The Square--A Wedding in La Bombilla--The Asphalt Caldrons.

The betrothal of El Carnicerin and Justa was formally arranged, Senor Custodio and his wife bathed in rose water, and only Manuel believed that in the end the wedding would never take place.

El Carnicerin was all together too haughty and too much of a fine fellow to marry the daughter of a ragdealer; Manuel imagined that now the butcher's son would try to take advantage of his opportunity. But for the present nothing authorized such malevolent suppositions.

El Carnicerin was generosity itself and showed delicate attentions to his sweetheart's parents.

One summer day he invited the whole family and Manuel to a bull fight.

Justa dressed up very fetchingly in her best to make a worthy companion to her lover. Senor Custodio took out his finest apparel: the new fedora, new although it was more than thirty years old; his coat of doubled cloth, excellent for the boreal regions, and a cane with a horn handle, bought in El Rastro; the ragdealer's wife wore a flowered kerchief, while Manuel made a most ridiculous appearance in a hat that was taken from the shop and protruded about a palm's length before his eyes, a winter suit that suffocated him and a pair of tight shoes.

Behind Justa and El Carnicerin, Senor Custodio, his wife and Manuel attracted everybody's attention and left a wake of laughter.

Justa turned back to look at them and could not help smiling. Manuel walked along in a rage, stifling, his hat pressing tightly against his forehead and his feet aching.

They got into a street car at Toledo Street and rode to the Puerta del Sol; there they boarded art omnibus, which took them to the bull ring.

They entered and, guided by El Carnicerin, sat themselves down in their respective places. The spectacle had begun and the amphitheatre was packed. Tier upon tier was crammed with a black ma.s.s of humanity.

Manuel glared into the arena; they were about to kill the bull near the stone wall that bounded the ring, at a short distance from where they were. The poor beast, half dead already, was dragging himself slowly along, followed by three or four toreros and the matador, who, curved forward, with his red flag in one hand and his sword in the other, came behind. The matador was scared out of his wits; he stood before the bull, considered carefully just where he was to strike him, and at the beast's slightest movement he prepared to escape. Then, if the bull remained quiet a while, he struck him once, again, and the animal lowered his head; with his tongue hanging out, dripping blood, he gazed out of the sad eyes of a dying creature. After much effort the matador gave him the final stroke and killed him.

The crowd applauded and the band blared forth. The whole business struck Manuel as pretty disagreeable, but he waited eagerly. The mules came out and dragged off the dead bull.

Soon the music ceased and another bull appeared. The picadores remained close to the walls while the toreros ventured a bit nearer to the beast and waved their red flags, at once rus.h.i.+ng back.

This was hardly anything like the picture Manuel had conjured up for himself, or like what he had seen in the coloured ill.u.s.trations of _La Lidia_. He had always imagined that the toreros, in the sheer skill of their art, would play around with the bull, and there wasn't any of this; they entrusted their salvation to their legs, just like the rest of the world.

After the inciting tactics of the toreros, two _monosabios_ began to beat a picador's horse with several sticks, until they got him to advance as far as the middle of the arena. Manuel had a close view of the horse; he was a large, white, bony creature with the saddest look on his face. The _>monosabios_ goaded him on toward the bull.

Soon the beast drew near, the picador p.r.i.c.ked him with the point of his lance, the bull lowered his head for the attack and threw the horse into the air. The rider fell to the ground and was picked up in a trice; the horse tried to raise himself, with his intestines sprawling on the sand in a pool of blood; he trampled on them with his hoofs, his legs wavered and he fell convulsively to the ground.

Manuel arose deathly pale.

A _monosabio_ approached the horse, who was still quivering; the animal raised his head as if to ask help, whereupon the man stabbed him to death with a poniard.

"I'm going. This is too nasty for anything," said Manuel to Senor Custodio. But it was no easy matter to leave the ring at that moment.

"The boy," said the ragdealer to his wife, "doesn't like it."

Justa, who had learned what was the matter, burst into laughter.

Manuel waited for the bull to be put to death; he kept his eyes fixed downward; the mules came out again, and as they dragged off the horse's body the intestines were left on the ground until a monosabio came along and dragged them off with a rake.

"Look at that tripe!" cried Justa, laughing.

Manuel, without a word, and unmindful of the eyes that were turned his way, left the tier. He went down to a series of long galleries, ranged with vile-smelling urinals, and tried unsuccessfully to locate the exit.

He was filled with rage against the whole world, against the others and against himself. The spectacle seemed to him a most repugnant, cowardly atrocity.

He had imagined bull-fighting to be something utterly distinct from what he had just witnessed; he had thought that always it would display the mastery of man over beast, and that the sword-thrusts would flash like lightning; that every moment of the struggle would bring forth something interesting and suggestive; and instead of a spectacle such as he had visioned, instead of a gory apotheosis of valour and strength, he beheld a petty, filthy thing, a medley of cowardice and intestines, a celebration in which one saw nothing but the torero's fear and the cowardly cruelty of the public taking pleasure in the throb of that fear.

"'This," thought Manuel, "could please only folks like El Carnicerin, effeminate loafers and indecent women."

Reaching home Manuel ragingly threw down his hat, pulled off his shoes and got out of the suit in which he had so ridiculously gone to the bull fight....

Manuel's indignation elicited plenty of comment from Senor Custodio and his wife, and he himself was somewhat intimidated by it; he understood that the spectacle hadn't been to his taste; what struck him as strange was that it should rouse so much anger, such rage in him.