Death in the Afternoon Page 10

  The president changes the act after three or at most four pairs of banderillas have been placed and the third and final division is the death. It is made up of three parts. First the brindis or salutation of the president and dedication or toasting of the death of the bull, either to him or to some other person by the matador, followed by the work of the matador with the muleta. This is a scarlet serge cloth which is folded over a stick which has a sharp spike at one end and a handle at the other. The spike goes through the cloth which is fastened to the other end of the handle with a thumb screw so that it hangs in folds along the length of the stick. Muleta means literally crutch, but in bullfighting it refers to the scarlet-serge-draped stick with which the matador is supposed to master the bull, prepare him for killing and finally hold in his left hand to lower the bull's head and keep it lowered while he kills the animal by a sword thrust high up between his shoulder blades.

  These are the three acts in the tragedy of the bullfight, and it is the first one, the horse part, which indicates what the others will be and, in fact, makes the rest possible. It is in the first act that the bull comes out in full possession of all of his faculties, confident, fast, vicious and conquering. All his victories are in the first act. At the end of the first act he has apparently won. He has cleared the ring of mounted men and is alone. In the second act he is baffled completely by an unarmed man and very cruelly punished by the banderillas so that his confidence and his blind general rage goes and he concentrates his hatred on an individual object. In the third act he is faced by only one man who must, alone, dominate him by a piece of cloth placed over a stick, and kill him from in front, going in over the bull's right horn to kill him with a sword thrust between the arch of his shoulder blades.

  When I first saw bullfights the only part that I did not like was the banderillas. They seemed to make such a great and cruel change in the bull. He became an altogether different animal when the banderillas were in and I resented the loss of the free, wild quality he brought with him into the ring; that quality that reaches its greatest expression when he faces the picadors. When the banderillas are in he is done for. They are the sentencing. The first act is the trial, the second act is the sentencing and the third the execution. But afterwards when I learned how much more dangerous the bull becomes as he goes on the defensive, how, after the banderillas have sobered him and his speed of foot has been cut he aims every horn stroke, as a hunter aims at an individual bird in a covey rather than shooting at them all and missing, and finally, when I learned the things that can be done with him as an artistic property when he is properly slowed and still has kept his bravery and his strength I kept my admiration for him always, but felt no more sympathy for him than for a canvas or the marble a sculpture cuts or the dry powder snow your skis cut through.

  I know no modern sculpture, except Brancusi's, that is in any way the equal of the sculpture of modern bullfighting. But it is an impermanent art as singing and the dance are, one of those that Leonardo advised men to avoid, and when the performer is gone the art exists only in the memory of those who have seen it and dies with them. Looking at photographs, reading descriptions, or trying to recall it too often can only kill it in the memory of an individual. If it were permanent it could be one of the major arts, but it is not and so it finishes with whoever makes it, while a major art cannot even be judged until the unimportant physical rottenness of whoever made it is well buried. It is an art that deals with death and death wipes it out. But it is never truly lost, you say, because in all arts all improvements and discoveries that are logical are carried on by some one else; so nothing is lost, really, except the man himself. Yes, and it would be very comforting to know that if at his death all the painter's canvases disappeared with him, that Cezanne's discoveries, for example, were not lost but would be used by all his imitators. Like hell it would.

  Suppose a painter's canvases disappeared with him and a writer's books were automatically destroyed at his death and only existed in the memory of those that had read them. That is what happens in bullfighting. The art, the method, the improvements of doing, the discoveries remain; but the individual, whose doing of them made them, who was the touchstone, the original, disappears and until another individual, as great, comes, the things, by being imitated, with the original gone, soon distort, lengthen, shorten, weaken and lose all reference to the original. All art is only done by the individual. The individual is all you ever have and all schools only serve to classify their members as failures. The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own. But there is sometimes a long time between great ones and those that have known the former great ones rarely recognize the new ones when they come. They want the old, the way it was that they remember it. But the others, the contemporaries, recognize the new great ones because of their ability to know so quickly, and finally even the ones who remember the old do. They are excused from not recognizing at once because they, in the period of waiting, see so many false ones that they become so cautious that they cannot trust their feelings; only their memory. Memory, of course, is never true.

  After you get a great bullfighter, you may lose him most easily from disease; much more easily than by death. Of the only two really great ones since Belmonte retired neither ever made a full career. Tuberculosis took one and syphilis ruined the other. They are the two occupational diseases of the matador. He starts the corrida in the hot sun, in a sun that is often so hot that people with little money will gladly pay three times as much for their ticket to be able to sit in the shade. He wears a heavy, gold-brocaded jacket that makes him sweat in the sun as a boxer sweats skipping rope in training. From this heat, in this perspiration, with no chance for a shower or an alcohol rub to close the pores, the matador, as the sun goes down, and the shadow of the amphitheatre falls on the sand, stands, comparatively inactive but in readiness to aid, while his companions kill their last bulls. Often at the end of summer and in the early fall in the high plateaus of Spain it is cold enough for you to need an overcoat at the end of a bullfight in a town where it was so hot in the sun at the beginning of the fight that you were liable to sunstroke if you were bareheaded. Spain is a mountain country and a good part of it is African and in the fall and end of summer when the sun is gone the cold comes quickly and deadly for any one who must stand in it, wet with sweat, unable even to wipe himself dry. A boxer takes every precaution to avoid catching cold when he is in a sweat, and a bullfighter can take none. That would be enough to account for the number who get tuberculosis even without the fatigue of the nightly journeying, and dust and daily fighting during the feria season of August and September.

  Syphilis is another thing. Boxers, bullfighters and soldiers contract syphilis for the same reasons that make them choose those professions. In boxing most sudden reversals of form, the majority of cases of what is called punch drunkenness, of "walking on the heels" are products of syphilis. You cannot name the individuals in a book because it is libelous, but any one in the profession will tell you of a dozen recent cases. There are always recent cases. Syphilis was the disease of the crusaders in the middle ages. It was supposed to be brought to Europe by them, and it is a disease of all people who lead lives in which a disregard of consequences dominates. It is an industrial accident, to be expected by all those who lead irregular sexual lives and from their habits of mind would rather take chances than use prophylactics, and it is a to-be-expected end, or rather phase, of the life of all fornicators who continue their careers far enough. A few years ago I had the opportunity of observing the rakes' progress of some citizens who, in college, were great moral influences, but after coming out into the world discovered the joys of immorality, which,
as believers in Yale in China, they had never indulged in as young men, and, delivering themselves to these joys, seemed to believe that they had discovered, if not indeed invented, sexual intercourse. They believed this was this great new thing that they had just discovered and were most joyously promiscuous until their first experience with disease which they then believed they too had discovered and invented. Surely one could never have known of this dreadful thing, nor could have experienced it or it would not have been allowed to exist and they become again, for a time, preachers and practisers of the greatest purity of life or, at least, limited their activities to a narrower social circle. There has been much change in fashion in morals and many who were formerly destined for teachers in fashionable Sunday-school classes are now our most prominent rounders. Like the bullfighters who are ruined by their first goring they have really no vocation as rounders, but it is a trial to watch or to hear them during their discovery of what Guy de Maupassant classed among the diseases of adolescence, and of what, incidentally, to justify his right so to speak, he died of. They say, "He jests at scars who never felt a wound." But he jests very well at scars who is covered with them, or at least men once did, although now our jesters will be most humorous about anything which happens to any one else, and the moment they are touched by anything themselves cry out, "But you don't understand. This is really serious!" and become great moralists or abandon the whole thing through something as banal as suicide. Probably venereal diseases must exist as bulls must have horns in order to keep all things in their proper relation, or the numbers of Casanovas and of matadors would be so great there would be practically no one else. But I would give much to have it eliminated in Spain, because of what it can do to a great matador. Though even if we did without it in Spain it could be acquired in other places or men would go upon a crusade and bring it back from somewhere.

  You cannot expect a matador who has triumphed in the afternoon by taking chances not to take them in the night and "mas cornadas dan las mujeres." Three things keep boys from promiscuous intercourse, religious belief, timidity, and fear of venereal diseases. The last is most commonly the basis of appeal made by the Y. M. C. A. and other institutions for clean living. Against these influences in a bullfighter is the tradition which demands that a torero have many affairs, his inclinations, the fact that there will always be women after him, some ¡for himself, some for his money and plenty for both, and his contempt for venereal diseases as danger. But, says the old lady, do many bullfighters contract these diseases?

  Madame, they contract them as all men do who go with women thinking only of the woman and not of their future health.

  Old lady: But why do they not take thought for their health?

  Madame, it is difficult. Truly it is not a thought that comes into the head of a man if he is well pleased. Even though a woman be a whore, yet if she be a good whore a man thinks well of her at the time and sometimes after.

  Old lady: And are these illnesses then all from commercial women?

  No, madame, they come often from friends or the friends of friends, or from any one you may bed with here, there or indeed anywhere.

  Old lady: It must be most dangerous then to be a man.

  It is indeed, madame, and but few survive it. 'Tis a hard trade and the grave is at the end of it.

  Old lady: Would it not be better if these men all married and bedded only with their wives?

  For their souls' good, yes, and for their bodies, too. But as bullfighters many are ruined if they marry if they love their wives truly.

  Old lady: And their wives? What of them?

  Of their wives who can speak who has not been one? If the husband has no contracts he does not make a living. But at each contract he risks death and no man can go into the ring and say that he will come out alive. It is not like being wife to a soldier, for your soldier earns his living when there is no war; nor your sailor for he is long gone, but his ship is his protection; nor your boxer for he does not face death. It is like being wife to no other man and I would not wish it for her if I had a daughter.

  Old lady: Have you a daughter, sir?

  No, madame.

  Old lady: Then at least, we need not worry for her. But I wish that the bullfighters did not get these illnesses.

  Ah, madame, you will find no man who is a man who will not bear some marks of past misfortune. Either he has been hit here, or broken this or contracted that, but a man throws off many things and I know a champion at golf who never putted so well as with the gonorrhea.

  Old lady: Have you no remedy then?

  Madame, there is no remedy for anything in life. Death is a sovereign remedy for all misfortunes and we'd do best to leave off all discoursing now and get to table. — Within our time the scientists may well abolish these old diseases and we'll live to see the end of all morality. But meantime I would rather dine on suckling pig at Botin's than sit and think of casualties my friends have suffered.

  Old lady: Then let us dine. To-morrow you can tell us more about the bullfights.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The fighting bull is to the domestic bull as the wolf is to the dog. A domestic bull may be evil tempered and vicious as a dog may be mean and dangerous, but he will never have the speed, the quality of muscle and sinew and the peculiar build of the fighting bull any more than the dog will have the sinews of the wolf, his cunning and his width of jaw. Bulls for the ring are wild animals. They are bred from strain that comes down in direct descent from the wild bulls that ranged over the Peninsula and they are bred on ranches with thousands of acres of range where they live as free ranging animals. The contacts with men of the bulls that are to appear in the ring are held to the absolute minimum.

  The physical characteristics of the fighting bull are its thick and very strong hide with glossy pelt, small head, but wide forehead; strength and shape of horns, which curve forward; short, thick neck with the great hump of muscle which erects when the bull is angry; wide shoulders, very small hooves and length and slenderness of tail. The female of the fighting bull is not as heavily built as the male; has a smaller head; shorter and thinner horns; a longer neck, a less pronounced dewlap under the jaw; is not as wide through the chest, and has no visible udder. I have frequently seen these cows in the ring in the amateur fights in Pamplona charging like bulls, tossing the amateurs about and they were invariably spoken of by the visiting foreigners as steers, since they showed no visible signs of their cowhood and gave no evidence of femininity. It is in the female of the fighting bull that you see most plainly the difference between the savage and domestic animal.

  One of the things one hears oftenest about bullfighting is the statement that a cow is much more dangerous when charging than a bull as the bull shuts his eyes while a cow keeps hers open. I do not know who started this, but there is no truth in it. The females that are used in amateur fights almost invariably make for the man rather than the cape, cut in on him rather than charge straight and will often single out one particular man or boy and pursue him through a crowd of half a hundred, but they do this not because of any innate superior intelligence in the female, as Virginia Woolf might suppose, but because female calves, since they are never to appear in the ring in normal fights and since there is no objection to their becoming completely educated in all the phases of bullfighting, are used exclusively for the bullfighters to train on with cape and muleta. Either a bull calf or a cow calf, if passed a few times with cape or muleta, learns all about it, remembers, and, if it is a bull, becomes consequently useless for a formal bullfight where everything is built on the basis of this being the bull's first encounter with a dismounted man. If the bull is unfamiliar with cape or muleta and charges straight, the man can create the danger himself by working as close to the bull's charge as possible and will be able to attempt a variety of passes, selecting them himself and arranging them in an emotional sequence rather than being forced into them as defensive measures. If the bull has been fought before, he will cut in constantly
on the man, will chop with his horns into the cloth looking for the man, and will create all the danger himself, putting the man constantly in retreat and on the defensive and making any clarity of passes or brilliance of fight impossible.

  The bullfight has been so developed and organized that the bull has just time enough, coming into the ring completely unfamiliar with dismounted men, to learn to distrust all their artifices and reach the summit of his danger at the moment of killing. The bull learns so rapidly in the ring that if the bullfight drags, is badly done, or is prolonged an extra ten minutes he becomes almost unkillable by the means prescribed in the rules of the spectacle. It is for this reason that bullfighters always practice and train with female calves which, after a few sessions, become so educated, the fighters say, that they can talk Greek and Latin. After this education, they are released in the ring for the amateurs; sometimes with naked horns, sometimes with the points covered with a leather ball, they come in as fast and lithe as deer to practice on the amateur capemen and aspirant bullfighters of all sorts in the capeas; to toss, rip, gore, pursue and inspire with terror these amateurs until, when the vacas tire, steers are let into the ring to take them out to rest in the corrals until their next appearance. The fighting cows, or vaquillas, seem to enjoy these appearances. They are not goaded, no divisa is placed in their shoulders, they are not irritated to make them charge and they seem to enjoy charging and tossing as much as a fighting cock does fighting. Of course they receive no punishment while the bull's bravery is judged by the manner in which he behaves under punishment.