"We'll watch him with the glasses," I said.
"Oh, to hell with him!"
"He spends a lot of time there."
"I want him to stay there."
In the hotel on the stairs we met Montoya.
"Come on," said Montoya. "Do you want to meet Pedro Romero?"
"Fine," said Bill. "Let's go see him."
We followed Montoya up a flight and down the corridor.
"He's in room number eight," Montoya explained. "He's getting dressed for the bullfight."
Montoya knocked on the door and opened it. It was a gloomy room with a little light coming in from the window on the narrow street. There were two beds separated by a monastic partition. The electric light was on. The boy stood very straight and unsmiling in his bullfighting clothes. His jacket hung over the back of a chair. They were just finishing winding his sash. His black hair shone under the electric light. He wore a white linen shirt and the sword-handler finished his sash and stood up and stepped back. Pedro Romero nodded, seeming very far away and dignified when we shook hands. Montoya said something about what great aficionados we were, and that we wanted to wish him luck. Romero listened very seriously. Then he turned to me. He was the best looking boy I have ever seen.
"You go to the bullfight," he said in English.
"You know English," I said, feeling like an idiot.
"No," he answered, and smiled.
One of three men who had been sitting on the beds came up and asked us if we spoke French. "Would you like me to interpret for you? Is there anything you would like to ask Pedro Romero?"
We thanked him. What was there that you would like to ask? The boy was nineteen years old, alone except for his sword-handler, and the three hangers-on, and the bullfight was to commence in twenty minutes. We wished him "Mucha suerte," shook hands, and went out. He was standing, straight and handsome and altogether by himself, alone in the room with the hangers-on as we shut the door.
"He's a fine boy, don't you think so?" Montoya asked.
"He's a good looking kid," I said.
"He looks like a torero," Montoya said. "He has the type."
"He's a fine boy."
"We'll see how he is in the ring," Montoya said.
We found the big leather wine bottle leaning against the wall in my room, took it and the field glasses, locked the door, and went downstairs.
It was a good bullfight. Bill and I were very excited about Pedro Romero. Montoya was sitting about ten places away. After Romero had killed his first bull Montoya caught my eye and nodded his head. This was a real one. There had not been a real one for a long time. Of the other two matadors, one was very fair and the other was passable. But there was no comparison with Romero, although neither of his bulls was much.
Several times during the bullfight I looked up at Mike and Brett and Cohn, with the glasses. They seemed to be all right. Brett did not look upset. All three were leaning forward on the concrete railing in front of them.
"Let me take the glasses," Bill said.
"Does Cohn look bored?" I asked.
"That kike!"
Outside the ring, after the bullfight was over, you could not move in the crowd. We could not make our way through but had to be moved with the whole thing, slowly, as a glacier, back to town. We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bullfight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bullfight. The fiesta was going on. The drums pounded and the pipe music was shrill, and everywhere the flow of the crowd was broken by patches of dancers. The dancers were in a crowd, so you did not see the intricate play of the feet. All you saw was the heads and shoulders going up and down, up and down. Finally, we got out of the crowd and made for the cafe. The waiter saved chairs for the others, and we each ordered an absinthe and watched the crowd in the square and the dancers.
"What do you suppose that dance is?" Bill asked.
"It's a sort of jota."
"They're not all the same," Bill said. "They dance differently to all the different tunes."
"It's swell dancing."
In front of us on a clear part of the street a company of boys were dancing. The steps were very intricate and their faces were intent and concentrated. They all looked down while they danced. Their rope-soled shoes tapped and spatted on the pavement. The toes touched. The heels touched. The balls of the feet touched. Then the music broke wildly and the step was finished and they were all dancing on up the street.
"Here come the gentry," Bill said.
They were crossing the street.
"Hello, men," I said.
"Hello, gents!" said Brett. "You saved us seats? How nice."
"I say," Mike said, "that Romero what'shisname is somebody. Am I wrong?"
"Oh, isn't he lovely," Brett said. "And those green trousers."
"Brett never took her eyes off them."
"I say, I must borrow your glasses tomorrow."
"How did it go?"
"Wonderfully! Simply perfect. I say, it is a spectacle!"
"How about the horses?"
"I couldn't help looking at them."
"She couldn't take her eyes off them," Mike said. "She's an extraordinary wench."
"They do have some rather awful things happen to them,"
Brett said. "I couldn't look away, though."
"Did you feel all right?"
"I didn't feel badly at all."
"Robert Cohn did," Mike put in. "You were quite green, Robert."
"The first horse did bother me," Cohn solid.
"You weren't bored, were you?" asked Bill.
Cohn laughed.
"No. I wasn't bored. I wish you'd forgive me that."
"It's all right," Bill said, "so long as you weren't bored."
"He didn't look bored," Mike said. "I thought he was going to be sick."
"I never felt that bad. It was just for a minute."
"I thought he was going to be sick. You weren't bored, were you, Robert?"
"Let up on that, Mike. I said I was sorry I said it."
"He was, you know. He was positively green."
"Oh, shove it along, Michael."
"You mustn't ever get bored at your first bullfight, Robert," Mike said. "It might make such a mess."
"Oh, shove it along, Michael," Brett said.
"He said Brett was a sadist," Mike said. "Brett's not a sadist. She's just a lovely, healthy wench."
"Are you a sadist, Brett?" I asked. "Hope not."
"He said Brett was a sadist just because she has a good, healthy stomach."
"Won't be healthy long."
Bill got Mike started on something else than Cohn. The waiter brought the absinthe glasses.
"Did you really like it?" Bill asked Cohn.
"No, I can't say I liked it. I think it's a wonderful show."
"Gad, yes! What a spectacle!" Brett said.
"I wish they didn't have the horse part," Cohn said.
"They're not important," Bill said. "After a while you never notice anything disgusting."
"It is a bit strong just at the start," Brett said. "There's a dreadful moment for me just when the bull starts for the horse."
"The bulls were fine," Cohn said.
"They were very good," Mike said.
"I want to sit down below, next time." Brett drank from her glass of absinthe.
"She wants to see the bullfighters close by," Mike said.
"They are something," Brett said. "That Romero lad is just a child."
"He's a damned good looking boy," I said. "When we were up in his room I never saw a better looking kid."
"How old do you suppose he is?"
"Nineteen or twenty."
"Just imagine it."
The bullfight on the second day was much better than on the first. Brett sat between Mike and me at the barrera, and Bill and Cohn went up above. Romero was the whole show. I do not think Brett saw any other bullfighter. No one else did either, except the hard-shelled technicians. It was al
l Romero. There were two other matadors, but they did not count. I sat beside Brett and explained to Brett what it was all about. I told her about watching the bull, not the horse, when the bulls charged the picadors, and got her to watching the picador place the point of his pic so that she saw what it was all about, so that it became more something that was going on with a definite end, and less of a spectacle with unexplained horrors. I had her watch how Romero took the bull away from a fallen horse with his cape, and how he held him with the cape and turned him, smoothly and suavely, never wasting the bull. She saw how Romero avoided every brusque movement and saved his bulls for the last when he wanted them, not winded and discomposed but smoothly worn down. She saw how close Romero always worked to the bull, and I pointed out to her the tricks the other bullfighters used to make it look as though they were working closely. She saw why she liked Romero's cape work and why she did not like the others.
Romero never made any contortions, always it was straight and pure and natural in line. The others twisted themselves like corkscrews, their elbows raised, and leaned against the flanks of the bull after his horns had passed, to give a faked look of danger. Afterward, all that was faked turned bad and gave an unpleasant feeling. Romero's bullfighting gave real emotion, because he kept the absolute purity of line in his movements and always quietly and calmly let the horns pass him close each time. He did not have to emphasize their closeness. Brett saw how something that was beautiful done close to the bull was ridiculous if it were done a little way off. I told her how since the death of Joselito all the bullfighters had been developing a technic that simulated this appearance of danger in order to give a fake emotional feeling, while the bullfighter was really safe. Romero had the old thing, the holding of his purity of line through the maximum of exposure, while he dominated the bull by making him realize he was unattainable, while he prepared him for the killing.
"I've never seen him do an awkward thing," Brett said.
"You won't until he gets frightened," I said.
"He'll never be frightened," Mike said. "He knows too damned much."
"He knew everything when he started. The others can't ever learn what he was born with."
"And God, what looks," Brett said.
"I believe, you know, that she's falling in love with this bullfighter chap," Mike said.
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"Be a good chap, Jake. Don't tell her anything more about him. Tell her how they beat their old mothers."
"Tell me what drunks they are."
"Oh, frightful," Mike said. "Drunk all day and spend all their time beating their poor old mothers."
"He looks that way," Brett said.
"Doesn't he?" I said.
They had hitched the mules to the dead bull and then the whips cracked, the men ran, and the mules, straining forward, their legs pushing, broke into a gallop, and the bull, one horn up, his head on its side, swept a swath smoothly across the sand and out the red gate.
"This next is the last one."
"Not really," Brett said. She leaned forward on the barrera. Romero waved his picadors to their places, then stood, his cape against his chest, looking across the ring to where the bull would come out.
After it was over we went out and were pressed tight in the crowd.
"These bullfights are hell on one," Brett said. "I'm limp as a rag."
"Oh, you'll get a drink," Mike said.
The next day Pedro Romero did not fight. It was Miura bulls, and a very bad bullfight. The next day there was no bullfight scheduled. But all day and all night the fiesta kept on.
Chapter XVI
In the morning it was raining. A fog had come over the mountains from the sea. You could not see the tops of the mountains. The plateau was dull and gloomy, and the shapes of the trees and the houses were changed. I walked out beyond the town to look at the weather. The bad weather was coming over the mountains from the sea.
The flags in the square hung wet from the white poles and the banners were wet and hung damp against the front of the houses, and in between the steady drizzle the rain came down and drove everyone under the arcades and made pools of water in the square, and the streets wet and dark and deserted; yet the fiesta kept up without any pause. It was only driven under cover.
The covered seats of the bullring had been crowded with people sitting out of the rain watching the concourse of Basque and Navarrais dancers and singers, and afterward the Val Carlos dancers in their costumes danced down the street in the rain, the drums sounding hollow and damp, and the chiefs of the bands riding ahead on their big, heavy-footed horses, their costumes wet, the horses' coats wet in the rain. The crowd was in the cafes and the dancers came in, too, and sat, their tight-wound white legs under the tables, shaking the water from their belled caps, and spreading their red and purple jackets over the chairs to dry. It was raining hard outside.
I left the crowd in the cafe and went over to the hotel to get shaved for dinner. I was shaving in my room when there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," I called.
Montoya walked in.
"How are you?" he said.
"Fine," I said.
"No bulls today."
"No," I said, "nothing but rain."
"Where are your friends?"
"Over at the Iruna."
Montoya smiled his embarrassed smile.
"Look," he said. "Do you know the American ambassador?"
"Yes," I said. "Everybody knows the American ambassador."
"He's here in town, now."
"Yes," I said. "Everybody's seen them."
"I've seen them, too," Montoya said. He didn't say anything. I went on shaving.
"Sit down," I said. "Let me send for a drink."
"No, I have to go."
I finished shaving and put my face down into the bowl and washed it with cold water. Montoya was standing there looking more embarrassed.
"Look," he said. "I've just had a message from them at the Grand Hotel that they want Pedro Romero and Marcial Lalanda to come over for coffee tonight after dinner."
'Well," I said, "it can't hurt Marcial any."
"Marcial has been in San Sebastian all day. He drove over in a car this morning with Marquez. I don't think they'll be back tonight."
Montoya stood embarrassed. He wanted me to say something.
"Don't give Romero the message," I said.
"You think so?"
"Absolutely."
Montoya was very pleased.
"I wanted to ask you because you were an American," he said.
"That's what I'd do."
"Look," said Montoya. "People take a boy like that. They don't know what he's worth. They don't know what he means. Any foreigner can flatter him. They start this Grand Hotel business, and in one year they're through."
"Like Algabeno," I said.
"Yes, like Algabeno."
"They're a fine lot," I said. "There's one American woman down here now that collects bullfighters."
"I know. They only want the young ones."
"Yes," I said. "The old ones get fat."
"Or crazy like Gallo."
"Well," I said, "it's easy. All you have to do is not give him the message."
"He's such a fine boy," said Montoya. "He ought to stay with his own people. He shouldn't mix in that stuff."
"Won't you have a drink?" I asked.
"No," said Montoya, "I have to go." He went out.
I went downstairs and out the door and took a walk around through the arcades around the square. It was still raining. I looked in at the Iruna for the gang and they were not there, so I walked on around the square and back to the hotel. They were eating dinner in the downstairs dining room.
They were well ahead of me and it was no use trying to catch them. Bill was buying shoe shines for Mike. Bootblacks opened the street door and each one Bill called over and started to work on Mike.
"This is the eleventh time my boots have been polished," Mike said. "
I say, Bill is an ass."
The bootblacks had evidently spread the report. Another came in.
"Limpia botas?" he said to Bill.
"No," said Bill. "For this Senor."
The bootblack knelt down beside the one at work and started on Mike's free shoe that shone already in the electric light.
"Bill's a yell of laughter," Mike said.
I was drinking red wine, and so far behind them that I felt a little uncomfortable about all this shoe shining. I looked around the room. At the next table was Pedro Romero. He stood up when I nodded, and asked me to come over and meet a friend. His table was beside ours, almost touching. I met the friend, a Madrid bullfight critic, a little man with a drawn face. I told Romero how much I liked his work, and he was very pleased. We talked Spanish and the critic knew a little French. I reached to our table for my wine bottle, but the critic took my arm. Romero laughed.
"Drink here," he said in English.
He was very bashful about his English, but he was really very pleased with it, and as we went on talking he brought out words he was not sure of, and asked me about them. He was anxious to know the English for Corrida de toros, the exact translation. Bullfight he was suspicious of. I explained that bullfight in Spanish was the lidia of a toro. The Spanish word corrida means in English the running of bulls--the French translation is Course de taureaux. The critic put that in. There is no Spanish word for bullfight.
Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bullfighting in Malaga in the bullfighting school there. He had only been at it three years. The bullfight critic joked him about the number of Malagueno expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His older brother was with him as a banderillero, but he did not live in this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to explain after I had made the mistake.
"Where did you see me the other time? In Madrid?"
"Yes," I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid in the bullfight papers, so I was all right.
"The first or the second time?"
"The first."
"I was very bad," he said. "The second time I was better. You remember?" He turned to the critic.
He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly about him.
"I like it very much that you like my work," he said. "But you haven't seen it yet. Tomorrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to you."
The Sun Also Rises Page 14