Gatherings From Spain

CHAPTER XXII

The Bull-fight – Opening of Spectacle – First Act, and Appearance of the Bull – The Picador – Bull Bastinado – The Horses, and their Cruel Treatment – Fire and Dogs – The Second Act – The Chulos and their Darts – The Third Act – The Matador – Death of the Bull – The Conclusion, and Philosophy of the Amusement – Its Effect on Ladies.

WHEN the appointed much-wished-for hour is come, the Queen or the Corregidor takes the seat of honour in a central and splendid box, the mob having been previously expelled from the open arena; this operation is called the despejo, and is an amusing one, from the reluctance with which the great unwashed submit to be cleaned out. The proceedings open at a given signal with a procession of the combatants, who advance preceded by alguaciles, or officers of police, who are dressed in the ancient Spanish costume, and are always at hand to arrest any one who infringes the severe laws against interruptions of the games. Then follow the picadores, or mounted horsemen, with their spears. Their original broad-brimmed Spanish hats are decorated with ribbons; their upper man is clad in a gay silken jacket, whose lightness contrasts with the heavy iron and leather protections of the legs, which give the clumsy look of a French jackbooted postilion. These defences are necessary when the horned animal charges home. Next follow the chulos, or combatants on foot, who are arrayed like Figaro at the opera, and have, moreover, silken cloaks of gay colours. The matadores, or killers, come behind them; and, last of all, a gaily-caparisoned team of mules, which is destined to drag the slaughtered bulls from the arena. As for the men, those who are killed on the spot are denied the burial-rites if they die without confession. Springing from the dregs of the people, they are eminently superstitious, and cover their breasts with relics, amulets, and papal charms. A clergyman, however, is in attendance with the sacramental wafer, in case su majestad may be wanted for a mortally-wounded combatant.

Having made their obeisances to the chief authority, all retire, and the fatal trumpet sounds; then the president throws the key of the gate by which the bull is to enter, to one of the alguaciles, who ought to catch it in his hat. When the door is opened, this worthy gallops away as fast as he can, amid the hoots and hisses of the mob, not because he rides like a constable, but from the instinctive enmity which his majesty the many bear to the finisher of the law, just as little birds love to mob a hawk; now more than a thousand kind wishes are offered up that the bull may catch and toss him. The brilliant army of combatants in the meanwhile separates like a bursting shell, and take up their respective places as regularly as our fielders do at a cricket-match.

The play, which consists of three acts, then begins in earnest; the drawing up of the curtain is a spirit-stirring moment; all eyes are riveted at the first appearance of the bull on this stage, as no one can tell how he may behave. Let loose from his dark cell, at first he seems amazed at the novelty of his position; torn from his pastures, imprisoned and exposed, stunned by the noise, he gazes an instant around at the crowd, the glare, and waving handkerchiefs, ignorant of the fate which inevitably awaits him. He bears on his neck a ribbon, “la devisa,” which designates his breeder. The picador endeavours to snatch this off, to lay the trophy at his true love’s heart. The bull is condemned without reprieve; however gallant his conduct, or desperate his resistance, his death is the catastrophe; the whole tragedy tends and hastens to this event, which, although it is darkly shadowed out beforehand, as in a Greek play, does not diminish the interest, since all the intermediate changes and chances are uncertain; hence the sustained excitement, for the action may pass in an instant from the sublime to the ridiculous, from tragedy to farce.

The bull no sooner recovers his senses, than his splendid Achillean rage fires every limb, and with closing eyes and lowered horns he rushes at the first of the three picadores, who are drawn up to the left, close to the tablas, or wooden barrier which walls round the ring. The horseman sits on his trembling Rosinante, with his pointed lance under his right arm, as stiff and valiant as Don Quixote. If the animal be only of second-rate power and courage, the sharp point arrests the charge, for he well remembers this garrocha, or goad, by which herdsmen enforce discipline and inculcate instruction; during this momentary pause a quick picador turns his horse to the left and gets free. The bulls, although irrational brutes, are not slow on their part in discovering when their antagonists are bold and dexterous, and particularly dislike fighting against the pricks. If they fly and will not face the picador, they are hooted at as despicable malefactors, who wish to defraud the public of their day’s sport, they are execrated as “goats,” “cows,” which is no compliment to bulls; these culprits, moreover, are soundly beaten as they pass near the barrier by forests of sticks, with which the mob is provided for the nonce; that of the elegant majo, when going to the bull-fight, is very peculiar, and is called la chivata; it is between four and five feet long, is taper, and terminates in a lump or knob, while the top is forked, into which the thumb is inserted; it is also peeled or painted in alternate rings, black and white, or red and yellow. The lower classes content themselves with a common shillelah; one with a knob at the end is preferred, as administering a more impressive whack; their instrument is called porro, because heavy and lumbering.

Nor is this bastinado uncalled for, since courage, address, and energy, are the qualities which ennoble tauromachia; and when they are wanting, the butchery, with its many disgusting incidents, becomes revolting to the stranger, but to him alone; for the gentler emotions of pity and mercy, which rarely soften any transactions of hard Iberia, are here banished altogether from the hearts of the natives; they now only have eyes for exhibitions of skill and valour, and scarcely observe those cruel incidents which engross and horrify the foreigner, who again on his part is equally blind to those redeeming excellencies, on which alone the attention of the rest of the spectators is fixed; the tables are now turned against the stranger, whose æsthetic mind’s eye can see the poetry and beauty of the picturesque rags and tumbledown hamlets of Spaniards, and yet is blind to the poverty, misery, and want of civilization, to which alone the vision of the higher classed native is directed, on whose exalted soul the coming comforts of cotton are gleaming.

When the bull is turned by the spear of the first picador, he passes on to the two other horsemen, who receive him with similar cordiality. If the animal be baffled by their skill and valour, stunning are the shouts of applause which celebrate the victory of the men: should he on the contrary charge home and overwhelm horses and riders, then – for the balances of praise and blame are held with perfect fairness – the fierce lord of the arena is encouraged with roars of compliments, Bravo toro, Viva toro, Well done, bull! even a long life is wished to him by thousands who know that he must be dead in twenty minutes.

A bold beast is not to be deterred by a trifling inch-deep wound, but presses on, goring the horse in the flank, and then gaining confidence and courage by victory, and “baptized in blood,” à la Française, advances in a career of honour, gore, and glory. The picador is seldom well mounted, for the horses are provided, at the lowest possible price, by a contractor, who runs the risk whether many or few are killed; they indeed are the only things economised in this costly spectacle, and are sorry, broken-down hacks, fit only for the dog-kennel of an English squire, or carriage of a foreign Pair. This increases the danger to his rider; in the ancient combats, the finest and most spirited horses were used; quick as lightning, and turning to the touch, they escaped the deadly rush. The eyes of those poor horses which see and will not face death, are often bound over with a handkerchief, like criminals about to be executed; thus they await blindfold the fatal horn thrust which is to end their life of misery.

The picadors are subject to most severe falls; the bull often tosses horse and rider in one ruin, and when his victims fall with a crash on the ground exhausts his fury upon his prostrate foes. The picador manages (if he can) to fall off on the opposite side, in order that his horse may form a barrier and rampart between him and the bull. When these deadly struggles take place, when life hangs on a thread, the amphitheatre is peopled with heads; every feeling of anxiety, eagerness, fear, horror, and delight is stamped on their expressive countenances; if happiness is to be estimated by quality, intensity, and concentration, rather than duration (and it is), these are moments of excitement more precious to them, than ages of placid, insipid, uniform stagnation. Their feelings are wrought to a pitch, when the horse, maddened with wounds and terror, plunging in the death-struggle, the crimson seams of blood streaking his foam and sweat-whitened body, flies from the infuriated bull still pursuing, still goring; then are displayed the nerve, presence of mind, and horsemanship of the dexterous and undismayed picador. It is in truth a piteous sight to see the poor mangled horses treading out their entrails, and yet gallantly carrying off their riders unhurt. But as in the pagan sacrifices, the quivering intestines, trembling with life, formed the most propitious omens – to what will not early habit familiarise? – so the Spaniards are no more affected with the reality, than the Italians are with the abstract “tanti palpiti” of Rossini.

The miserable horse, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a bloody furrow on the sand, as the river-beds of the arid plains of Barbary are marked by the crimson fringe of the flowering oleanders. A universal sympathy is shown for the horseman in these awful moments; the men rise, the women scream, but all this soon subsides; the picador, if wounded, is carried out and forgotten – “los muertos y idos no tienen amigos” – a new combatant fills up his gap, the battle rages – wounds and death are the order of the day – he is not missed; and as new incidents arise, no pause is left for regret or reflection. We remember seeing at Granada a matador cruelly gored by a bull: he was carried away as dead, and his place immediately taken by his son, as coolly as a viscount succeeds to an earl’s estate and title. Carnerero, the musician, died while fiddling at a ball at Madrid, in 1838; neither the band nor the dancers stopped one moment. The boldness of the picadors is great. Francisco Sevilla, when thrown from his horse and lying under the dying animal, seized the bull, as he rushed at him, by his ears, turned round to the people, and laughed; but, in fact, the long horns of the bull make it difficult for him to gore a man on the ground; he generally bruises them with his nose: nor does he remain long busied with his victim, since he is lured to fresh attacks by the glittering cloaks of the Chulos who come instantly to the rescue. At the same time we are free to confess, that few picadors, although men of bronze, can be said to have a sound rib in their body. When one is carried off apparently dead, but returns immediately mounted on a fresh horse, the applauding voice of the people outbellows a thousand bulls. If the wounded man should chance not to come back, n’importe, however courted outside the Plaza, now he is ranked, like the gladiator was by the Romans, no higher than a beast, – or about the same as a slave under the perfect equality and man rights of the model republic.

The poor horse is valued at even less, and he, of all the actors, is the one in which Englishmen, true lovers and breeders of the noble animal, take the liveliest interest; nor can any bull-fighting habit ever reconcile them to his sufferings and ill-treatment. The hearts of the picadors are as devoid of feeling as their iron-cased legs; they only think of themselves, and have a nice tact in knowing when a wound is fatal or not. Accordingly, if the horn-thrust has touched a vital part, no sooner has the enemy passed on to a new victim, than an experienced picador quietly dismounts, takes off the saddle and bridle, and hobbles off like Richard, calling out for another horse – a horse! The poor animal, when stripped of these accoutrements, has a most rippish look, as it staggers to and fro, like a drunken man, until again attacked by the bull and prostrated; then it lies dying unnoticed in the sand, or, if observed, merely rouses the jeers of the mob; as its tail quivers in the last agony of death, your attention is called to the fun; Mira, mira, que cola! The words and sight yet haunt us, for they were those that first caught our inexperienced ears and eyes at the first rush of the first bull of our first bullfight. While gazing on the scene in a total abstraction from the world, we felt our coat-tails tugged at, as by a greedily-biting pike; we had caught, or, rather, were caught by a venerable harridan, whose quick perception had discovered a novice, whom her kindness prompted to instruct, for e’en in the ashes live the wonted fires; a bright, fierce eye gleamed alive in a dead and shrivelled face, which evil passions had furrowed like the lava-seared sides of an extinct volcano, and dried up, like a cat starved behind a wainscot, into a thing of fur and bones, in which gender was obliterated – let her pass. If the wound received by the horse be not instantaneously mortal, the blood-vomiting hole is plugged up with tow, and the fountain of life stopped for a few minutes. If the flank is only partially ruptured, the protruding bowels are pushed back – no operation in hernia is half so well performed by Spanish surgeons – and the rent is sown up with a needle and pack-thread. Thus existence is prolonged for new tortures, and a few dollars are saved to the contractor; but neither death nor lacerations excite the least pity, nay, the bloodier and more fatal the spectacle, the more brilliant is it pronounced. It is of no use to remonstrate, or ask why the wounded sufferers are not mercifully killed at once; the utilitarian Spaniard dislikes to see the order of the sport interrupted and spoilt by what he considers foreign squeamishness and nonsense, “Ah que! no vale nã,” – “Bah! the beast is worth nothing;” that is, provided he condescends to reply to your disparates with anything beyond a shrug of civil contempt. But national tastes will differ. “Sir,” said an alderman to Dr. Johnson, “in attempting to listen to your long sentences, and give you a short answer, I have swallowed two pieces of green fat, without tasting the flavour. I beg you to let me enjoy my present happiness in peace and quiet.”

The bull is the hero of the scene; yet, like Satan in the Paradise Lost, he is foredoomed. Nothing can save him from a certain fate, which awaits all, whether brave or cowardly. The poor creatures sometimes endeavour in vain to escape, and have favourite retreats, to which they fly; or they leap over the barrier, among the spectators, creating a vast hubbub and fun, upsetting water-carriers and fancy men, putting sentinels and old women to flight, and affording infinite delight to all who are safe in the boxes; for, as Bacon remarks, “It is pleasant to see a battle from a distant hill.” Bulls which exhibit this cowardlike activity are insulted: cries of “fuego” and “perros,” fire and dogs, resound, and he is condemned to be baited. As the Spanish dogs have by no means the pluck of the English assailants of bulls, they are longer at the work, and many are made minced-meat of: —

When at length the poor brute is pulled down, he is stabbed in the spine, as if he were only fit for the shambles, being a civilian ox, not a soldierlike bull. All these processes are considered as deadly insults; and when more than one bull exhibits these craven propensities to baulk nobler expectancies, then is raised the cry of “Cabestros al circo!” tame oxen to the circus. This is a mortal affront to the empresa, or management, as it infers that it has furnished animals fitter for the plough than for the arena. The indignation of the mob is terrible; for, if disappointed in the blood of bulls, it will lap that of men.

The bull is sometimes teased with stuffed figures, men of straw with leaded feet, which rise up again as soon as he knocks them down. An old author relates that in the time of Philip IV. “a despicable peasant was occasionally set upon a lean horse, and exposed to death.” At other times, to amuse the populace, a monkey is tied to a pole in the arena. This art of ingeniously tormenting is considered as unjustifiable homicide by certain lively philosimious foreigners; and, indeed, all these episodes are despised as irregular hors d’œuvres, by the real and business-like amateur.

After a due time the first act terminates: its length is uncertain. Sometimes it is most brilliant, since one bull has been known to kill a dozen horses, and clear the plaza. Then he is adored; and as he roams, snorting about, lord of all he surveys, he becomes the sole object of worship to ten thousand devotees; at the signal of the president, and sound of a trumpet, the second act commences with the performances of the chulo, a word which signifies, in the Arabic, a lad, a merryman, as at our fairs. The duty of this light division, these skirmishers, is to draw off the bull from the picador when endangered, which they do with their coloured cloaks; their address and agility are surprising, they skim over the sand like glittering humming-birds, scarcely touching the earth. They are dressed in short breeches, and without gaiters, just as Figaro is in the opera of the ‘Barbiere de Seviglia.’ Their hair is tied into a knot behind, and enclosed in the once universal silk net, the retecilla– the identical reticulum– of which so many instances are seen on ancient Etruscan vases. No bull-fighters ever arrive at the top of their profession without first excelling in this apprenticeship; then, they are taught how to entice the bull to them, and learn his mode of attack, and how to parry it. The most dangerous moment is when these chulos venture out into the middle of the plaza, and are followed by the bull to the barrier. There is a small ledge, on which they place their foot, and vault over, and a narrow slit in the boarding, through which they slip. Their escapes are marvellous, and they win by a neck; they seem really sometimes, so close is the run, to be helped over the fence by the bull’s horns. The chulos, in the second act, are the sole performers; their part is to place small barbed darts, on each side of the neck of the bull, which are called banderillas, and are ornamented with cut paper of different colours – gay decorations under which cruelty is concealed. The banderilleros go right up to him, holding the arrows at the shaft, and pointing the barbs at the bull; just when the animal stoops to toss his foes, they jerk them into his neck and slip aside. The service appears to be more dangerous than it is, but it requires a quick eye, a light hand and foot. The barbs should be placed to correspond with each other exactly on both sides. Such pretty pairs are termed buenos pares by the Spaniards, and the feat is called coiffer le taureau by the French, who undoubtedly are first-rate perruquiers. Very often these arrows are provided with crackers, which, by means of a detonating powder, explode the moment they are affixed in the neck; thence they are called banderillas de fuego. The agony of the scorched and tortured animal makes him plunge and bound like a sportive lamb, to the intense joy of the populace, while the fire, the smell of singed hair and roasted flesh, which our gastronome neighbours would call a bifstec à l’Espagnole, faintly recall to many a dark scowling priest the superior attractions of his former amphitheatre, the auto de fe.

The last trumpet now sounds, the arena is cleared, and the matador, the executioner, the man of death, stands before his victim alone; on entering, he addresses the president, and throws his cap to the ground. In his right hand he holds a long straight Toledan blade; in his left he waves the muleta, the red flag, or the engaño, the lure, which ought not (so Romero laid down in our hearing) to be so large as the standard of a religious brotherhood, nor so small as a lady’s pocket-handkerchief, but about a yard square. The colour is always red, because that best irritates the bull and conceals blood. There is always a spare slayer at hand in case of accidents, which may happen in the best regulated bull-fights.

The matador, from being alone, concentrates in himself all the interest as regards the human species, which was before frittered away among the many other combatants, as was the case in the ancient gladiatorial shows of Rome. He advances to the bull, in order to entice him towards him, or, in nice technical idiom, citarlo á la jurisdiccion del engaño, to cite him into the jurisdiction of the trick; in plain English, to subpœna him, or, as our ring would say, get his head into chancery. And this trial is nearly as awful, as the matador stands confronted with his foe, in the presence of inexorable witnesses, the bar and judges, who would rather see the bull kill him twice over, than that he should kill the bull contrary to the rules and practice of the court and tauromachian precedent. In these brief but trying moments the matador generally looks pale and anxious, as well he may, for life hangs on the edge of a razor, but he presents a fine picture of fixed purpose and concentration of moral energy. And Seneca said truly that the world had seen as many examples of courage in gladiators, as in the Catos and Scipios.

The matador endeavours rapidly to discover the character of the animal, and examines with eye keener than Spurzheim, his bumps of combativeness, destructiveness, and other amiable organs; nor has he many moments to lose, where mistake is fatal, as one must die, and both may. Here, as Falstaff says, there is no scoring, except on the pate. Often even the brute bull seems to feel that the last moment is come, and pauses, when face to face in the deadly duel with his single opponent. Be that as it may, the contrast is very striking. The slayer is arrayed in a ball costume, with no buckler but skill, and as if it were a pastime: he is all coolness, the beast all rage; and time it is to be collected, for now indeed knowledge is power, and could the beast reason, the man would have small chance. Meanwhile the spectators are wound up to a greater pitch of madness than the poor bull, who has undergone a long torture, besides continued excitement: he at this instant becomes a study for a Paul Potter; his eyes flash fire – his inflated nostrils snort fury; his body is covered with sweat and foam, or crimsoned with a glaze of gore streaming from gaping wounds. “Mira! que bel cuerpo de sangre!– look! what a beauteous body of blood!” exclaimed the worthy old lady, who, as we before mentioned, was kind enough to point out to our inexperience the tit bits of the treat, the pearls of greatest price.

There are several sorts of toros, whose characters vary no less than those of men: some are brave and dashing, others are slow and heavy, others sly and cowardly. The matador foils and plays with the bull until he has discovered his disposition. The fundamental principle consists in the animal’s mode of attack, the stooping his head and shutting his eyes, before he butts; the secret of mastering him lies in distinguishing whether he acts on the offensive or defensive. Those which are fearless, and rush boldly on at once, closing their eyes, are the most easy to kill; those which are cunning – which seldom go straight when they charge, but stop, dodge, and run at the man, not the flag, are the most dangerous. The interest of the spectators increases in proportion as the peril is great.