you were my enemy! It would seem that you wished for my death, you villain!"
The more he thought of the enormity of this carelessness, which was equivalent to courting disaster, the more his anger increased—To fight in Madrid in red clothes, after what had happened! His eyes sparkled with rage, as if he had just received some treacherous attack, the whites of his eyes became bloodshot and he seemed ready to fall on the unfortunate Garabato with his big rough hands.
A discreet knock at the door cut the scene short—"Come in."
A young man entered, dressed in a light suit with a red cravat, carrying his Cordovan felt hat in a hand covered with large diamond rings. Gallardo recognised him at once with the facility for remembering faces acquired by those who live constantly rubbing shoulders with the crowd. His anger was instantly transformed to a smiling amiability, as if the visit was a pleasant surprise to him.
It was a friend from Bilbao, an enthusiastic aficionado, a warm partisan of his triumphs. That was all he could remember about him. His name? He knew so many people! What did he call himself?—All he knew was that most certainly he ought to call him "tu," as this was an old acquaintanceship.
"Sit down—This is a surprise! When did you arrive? Are you and yours quite well?"
His admirer sat down, with the contentment of a devotee who enters the sanctuary of his idol, with no intention of moving from it till the very last moment, delighted at being addressed as "tu" by the master, and calling him "Juan" at every other word, so that the furniture, walls, or anyone passing along the passage outside should be aware of his intimacy with the great man. 'He had arrived that morning and was returning on the following day. The journey was solely to see Gallardo. He had read of his exploits. The season seemed opening well. This afternoon would be a good one. He had been in the boxing enclosure[26] in the morning and had noticed an almost black animal which assuredly would give great sport in Gallardo's hands——'
The master hurriedly cut short the habitué's prophesies.
"Pardon me—Pray excuse me. I will return at once."
Leaving the room, he went towards an unnumbered door at the end of the passage.
"What clothes shall I put out?" enquired Garabato, in a voice more hoarse than usual, from his wish to appear submissive.
"The green, the tobacco, the blue—anything you please," and Gallardo disappeared through the little door, while his servant, freed from his presence, smiled with malicious revenge. He knew what that sudden rush meant, just at dressing time—"the relief of fear" they called it in the profession, and his smile expressed satisfaction to see once more that the greatest masters of the art and the bravest, suffered as the result of their anxiety, just the same as he himself had done, when he went down into the arena in different towns.
When Gallardo returned to his room, some little time after, he found a fresh visitor. This was Doctor Ruiz, a popular physician who had spent thirty years signing the bulletins of the various Cogidas,[27] and attending every torero who fell wounded in the Plaza of Madrid.
Gallardo admired him immensely, regarding him as the greatest exponent of universal science, but at the same time he allowed himself affectionate chaff at the expense of the Doctor's good-natured character and personal untidiness. His admiration was that of the populace,—only recognising ability in a slovenly person if he possesses sufficient eccentricity to distinguish him from the general run.
He was of low stature and prominent abdomen, broad faced and flat-nosed, with a Newgate frill of dirty whitish yellow which gave him at a distance a certain resemblance to a bust of Socrates. As he stood up, his protuberant and flabby stomach seemed to shake under his ample waistcoat as he spoke. As he sat down this same part of his anatomy rose up to his meagre chest. His clothes, stained and old after a few days' use, seemed to float about his unharmonious body like garments belonging to someone else—so obese was he in the parts devoted to digestion, and so lean in those of locomotion.
"He is a simpleton," said Gallardo—"a learned man certainly, as good as bread, but 'touched.' He will never have a peseta. Whatever he has he gives away, and he takes what anyone chooses to pay him."
Two great passions filled his life—the Revolution and Bulls. That vague but tremendous revolution which would come, leaving in Europe nothing that now existed, an anarchical republicanism that he did not trouble to explain, and which was only clear in its exterminatory negations. The toreros spoke to him as a father, he called them all "tu," and it was sufficient for a telegram to come from the furthest end of the Peninsula for the good doctor instantly to take the train and rush to heal a goring received by one of his "lads" with no expectation of any recompense, beyond simply what they chose to give him.
He embraced Gallardo on seeing him after his long absence, pressing his flaccid abdomen against that body which seemed made of bronze.
"Oh! You fine fellow!" He thought the espada looked better than ever.
"And how about that Republic, Doctor? When is it going to come? … " asked Gallardo, with Andalusian laziness. … "El Nacional[28] says that we are on the verge, and that it will come one of these days."
"What does it matter to you, rascal? Leave poor Nacional in peace. He had far better learn to be a better banderillero. As for you, what ought to interest you is to go on killing bulls, like God himself! … We have a fine little afternoon in prospect! I am told that the herd. … "
But when he got as far as this, the young man who had seen the selection and wished to give news of it, interrupted the doctor to speak of the dark bull "which had struck his eye," and from which the greatest wonders might be expected. The two men who, after bowing to each other, had sat together in the room for a long time in silence, now stood up face to face, and Gallardo thought that an introduction was necessary, but what was he to call the friend who was addressing him as "tu?" He scratched his head, frowning reflectively, but his indecision was short.
"Listen here. What is your name? Pardon me—you understand I see so many people."
The youth smothered beneath a smile his disenchantment at finding himself forgotten by the Master and gave his name. When he heard it, Gallardo felt all the past recur suddenly to his memory and repaired his forgetfulness by adding after the name "a rich mine-owner in Bilbao," and then presented "the famous Dr. Ruiz," and the two men, united by the enthusiasm of a common passion, began to chat about the afternoon's herd, just as if they had known each other all their lives.
"Sit yourselves down," said Gallardo, pointing to a sofa at the further end of the room, "You won't disturb me there. Talk and pay no attention to me. I am going to dress, as we are all men here," and he began to take off his clothes, remaining only in his undergarments.
Seated on a chair under the arch which divided the sitting-room from the bedroom, he gave himself over into the hands of Garabato, who had opened a Russia leather bag from which he had taken an almost feminine toilet case, for trimming up his master.
In spite of his being already carefully shaved, Garabato soaped his face and passed the razor over his cheeks with the celerity born of daily practice. After washing himself Gallardo resumed his seat. The servant then sprinkled his hair with brilliantine and scent, combing it in curls over his forehead and temples, and then began to dress the sign of the profession, the sacred pig-tail.
With
