Men without women
repose, watching lazy-eyed. Now the two came up. Hernandez motioned them
to stand one at each side. Manuel stood alone, facing the bull.
Manuel waved back the men with the capes. Stepping back cautiously, they
saw his face was white and sweating.
Didn’t they know enough to keep back? Did they want to catch the bull’s
eye with the capes after he was fixed and ready? He had enough to worry
about without that kind of thing.
The bull was standing, his four feet square, looking at the muleta.
Manuel furled the muleta in his left hand. The bull’s eyes watched it.
His body was heavy on his feet. He carried his head low, but not too
low.
Manuel lifted the muleta at him. The bull did not move. Only his eyes
watched.
He’s all lead, Manuel thought. He’s all square. He’s framed right. He’ll
take it.
He thought in bull-fight terms. Sometimes he had a thought and the
particular piece of slang would not come into his mind and he could not
realize the thought. His instincts and his knowledge worked
automatically, and his brain worked slowly and in words. He knew all
about bulls. He did not have to think about them. He just did the right
thing. His eyes noted things and his body performed the necessary
measures without thought. If he thought about it, he would be gone.
Now, facing the bull, he was conscious of many things at the same time.
There were the horns, the one splintered, the other smoothly sharp, the
need to profile himself toward the left horn, lance himself short and
straight, lower the muleta so the bull would follow it, and, going in
over the horns, put the sword all the way into a little spot about as
big as a five-peseta piece straight in back of the neck, between the
sharp pitch of the bull’s shoulders. He must do all this and must then
come out from between the horns. He was conscious he must do all this,
but his only thought was in words: “Corto y derecho.”
“Corto y derecho,” he thought, furling the muleta. Short and straight.
Corto y derecho, he drew the sword out of the muleta, profiled on the
splintered left horn, dropped the muleta across his body, so his right
hand with the sword on the level with his eye made the sign of the
cross, and, rising on his toes, sighted along the dipping blade of the
sword at the spot high up between the bull’s shoulders.
Corto y derecho he lanced himself on the bull.
There was a shock, and he felt himself go up in the air. He pushed on
the sword as he went up and over, and it flew out of his hand. He hit
the ground and the bull was on him. Manuel, lying on the ground, kicked
at the bull’s muzzle with his slippered feet. Kicking, kicking, the bull
after him, missing him in his excitement, bumping him with his head,
driving the horns into the sand. Kicking like a man keeping a ball in
the air, Manuel kept the bull from getting a clean thrust at him.
Manuel felt the wind on his back from the capes flopping at the bull,
and then the bull was gone, gone over him in a rush. Dark, as his belly
went over. Not even stepped on.
Manuel stood up and picked up the muleta. Fuentes handed him the sword.
It was bent where it had struck the shoulder-blade. Manuel straightened
it on his knee and ran toward the bull, standing now beside one of the
dead horses. As he ran, his jacket flopped where it had been ripped
under his armpit.
“Get him out of there,” Manuel shouted to the gypsy. The bull had
smelled the blood of the dead horse and ripped into the canvas-cover
with his horns. He charged Fuentes’s cape, with the canvas hanging from
his splintered horn, and the crowd laughed. Out in the ring, he tossed
his head to rid himself of the canvas. Hernandez, running up from behind
him, grabbed the end of the canvas and neatly lifted it off the horn.
The bull followed it in a half-charge and stopped still. He was on the
defensive again. Manuel was walking toward him with the sword and
muleta. Manuel swung the muleta before him. The bull would not charge.
Manuel profiled toward the bull, sighting along the dipping blade of the
sword. The bull was motionless, seemingly dead on his feet, incapable of
another charge.
Manuel rose to his toes, sighting along the steel, and charged.
Again there was the shock and he felt himself being borne back in a
rush, to strike hard on the sand. There was no chance of kicking this
time. The bull was on top of him. Manuel lay as though dead, his head on
his arms, and the bull bumped him. Bumped his back, bumped his face in
the sand. He felt the horn go into the sand between his folded arms. The
bull hit him in the small of the back. His face drove into the sand. The
horn drove through one of his sleeves and the bull ripped it off. Manuel
was tossed clear and the bull followed the capes.
Manuel got up, found the sword and muleta, tried the point of the sword
with his thumb, and then ran toward the barrera for a new sword.
Retana’s man handed him the sword over the edge of the barrera.
“Wipe off your face,” he said.
Manuel, running again toward the bull, wiped his bloody face with his
handkerchief. He had not seen Zurito. Where was Zurito?
The cuadrilla had stepped away from the bull and waited with their
capes. The bull stood, heavy and dull again after the action.
Manuel walked toward him with the muleta. He stopped and shook it. The
bull did not respond. He passed it right and left, left and right before
the bull’s muzzle. The bull’s eyes watched it and turned with the swing,
but he would not charge. He was waiting for Manuel.
Manuel was worried. There was nothing to do but go in. Corto y derecho.
He profiled close to the bull, crossed the muleta in front of his body
and charged. As he pushed in the sword, he jerked his body to the left
to clear the horn. The bull passed him and the sword shot up in the air,
twinkling under the arc-lights, to fall red-hilted on the sand.
Manuel ran over and picked it up. It was bent and he straightened it
over his knee.
As he came running toward the bull, fixed again now, he passed Hernandez
standing with his cape.
“He’s all bone,” the boy said encouragingly.
Manuel nodded, wiping his face. He put the bloody handkerchief in his
pocket.
There was the bull. He was close to the barrera now. Damn him. Maybe he
was all bone. Maybe there was not any place for the sword to go in. The
hell there wasn’t! He’d show them.
He tried a pass with the muleta and the bull did not move. Manuel
chopped the muleta back and forth in front of the bull. Nothing doing.
He furled the muleta, drew the sword out, profiled and drove in on the
bull. He felt the sword buckle as he shoved it in, leaning his weight on
it, and then it shot high in the air, end-over-ending into the crowd.
Manuel had jerked clear as the sword jumped.
The first cushions thrown down out of the dark missed him. Then one hit
him in the face, his bloody face looking toward the crowd. They were
coming down fast. Spotting the sand. Somebody threw an empty
champagne-bottle from close range. It hit Manuel on the foot. He stood
there watching the dark, where the things were coming from. Then
something whished through the air and struck by him. Manuel leaned over
and picked it up. It was his sword. He straightened it over his knee and
gestured with it to the crowd.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
Oh, the dirty bastards! Dirty bastards! Oh, the lousy, dirty bastards!
He kicked into a cushion as he ran.
There was the bull. The same as ever. All right, you dirty, lousy
bastard!
Manuel passed the muleta in front of the bull’s black muzzle.
Nothing doing.
You won’t! All right. He stepped close and jammed the sharp peak of the
muleta into the bull’s damp muzzle.
The bull was on him as he jumped back and as he tripped on a cushion he
felt the horn go into him, into his side. He grabbed the horn with his
two hands and rode backward, holding tight onto the place. The bull
tossed him and he was clear. He lay still. It was all right. The bull
was gone.
He got up coughing and feeling broken and gone. The dirty bastards!
“Give me the sword,” he shouted. “Give me the stuff.”
Fuentes came up with the muleta and the sword.
Hernandez put his arm around him.
“Go on to the infirmary, man,” he said. “Don’t be a damn fool.”
“Get away from me,” Manuel said. “Get to hell away from me.”
He twisted free. Hernandez shrugged his shoulders. Manuel ran toward the
bull.
There was the bull standing, heavy, firmly planted.
All right, you bastard! Manuel drew the sword out of the muleta, sighted
with the same movement, and flung himself onto the bull. He felt the
sword go in all the way. Right up to the guard. Four fingers and his
thumb into the bull. The blood was hot on his knuckles, and he was on
top of the bull.
The bull lurched with him as he lay on, and seemed to sink; then he was
standing clear. He looked at the bull going down slowly over on his
side, then suddenly four feet in the air.
Then he gestured at the crowd, his hand warm from the bull blood.
All right, you bastards! He wanted to say something, but he started to
cough. It was hot and choking. He looked down for the muleta. He must go
over and salute the president. President hell! He was sitting down
looking at something. It was the bull. His four feet up. Thick tongue
out. Things crawling around on his belly and under his legs. Crawling
where the hair was thin. Dead bull. To hell with the bull! To hell with
them all! He started to get to his feet and commenced to cough. He sat
down again, coughing. Somebody came and pushed him up.
They carried him across the ring to the infirmary, running with him
across the sand, standing blocked at the gate as the mules came in, then
around under the dark passageway, men grunting as they took him up the
stairway, and then laid him down.
The doctor and two men in white were waiting for him. They laid him out
on the table. They were cutting away his shirt. Manuel felt tired. His
whole chest felt scalding inside. He started to cough and they held
something to his mouth. Everybody was very busy.
There was an electric light in his eyes. He shut his eyes.
He heard some one coming very heavily up the stairs. Then he did not
hear it. Then he heard a noise far off. That was the crowd. Well,
somebody would have to kill his other bull. They had cut away all his
shirt. The doctor smiled at him. There was Retana.
“Hello, Retana!” Manuel said. He could not hear his voice.
Retana smiled at him and said something. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito stood beside the table, bending over where the doctor was
working. He was in his picador clothes, without his hat.
Zurito said something to him. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito was speaking to Retana. One of the men in white smiled and handed
Retana a pair of scissors. Retana gave them to Zurito. Zurito said
something to Manuel. He could not hear it.
To hell with this operating-table! He’d been on plenty of
operating-tables before. He was not going to die. There would be a
priest if he was going to die.
Zurito was saying something to him. Holding up the scissors.
That was it. They were going to cut off his coleta. They were going to
cut off his pigtail.
Manuel sat up on the operating-table. The doctor stepped back, angry.
Some one grabbed him and held him.
“You couldn’t do a thing like that, Manos,” he said.
He heard suddenly, clearly, Zurito’s voice.
“That’s all right,” Zurito said. “I won’t do it. I was joking.”
“I was going good,” Manuel said. “I didn’t have any luck. That was all.”
Manuel lay back. They had put something over his face. It was all
familiar. He inhaled deeply. He felt very tired. He was very, very
tired. They took the thing away from his face.
“I was going good,” Manuel said weakly. “I was going great.”