Banderilleros are sometimes lean, brown, young, brave, skillful and confident; more of a man than their matador, perhaps deceiving him with his mistress, making what seems to them a good living; enjoying the life; other times they are respectable fathers of families, wise about bulls, fat but still fast on their feet, small business men with the bulls as their business; other times they are tough, unintelligent, but brave and capable, lasting like ballplayers, as long as their legs hold out; others may be brave but unskillful, eking out a living, or they may be old and intelligent but with their legs gone, sought out by young fighters for their authority in the ring and their skill at placing bulls correctly.
Blanquet was a very small man, very serious and honorable, with a Roman nose and an almost gray face, who had the greatest intelligence of the bullfight I have ever seen and a cape that seemed magic in correcting the faults of a bull. He was the confidential peon of Joselito, Granero and Litri, all of whom were killed by bulls and to none of whom his cape, so providential always when needed, was of any use on the days when they were killed. Blanquet himself died of a heart attack coming on in a hotel room after he had left the ring and before he had changed his clothes to bathe.
Of the banderilleros working now, the one with the most style with the sticks is probably Magritas. There is no one with the cape who has the style Blanquet had. He handled the cape with one hand with the same sort of delicacy that Rafael El Gallo did, but with the skillful, self-effacing modesty of a peon. It was watching the interest and activities of Blanquet at moments when nothing particular seemed to be happening that I learned the profundity of unseen detail in the fighting of any single bull.
Do you want conversation? What about? Something about painting? Something to please Mr. Huxley? Something to make the book worthwhile? All right, this is the end of a chapter, we can put it in. Well, when Julius Meier-Graefe, the German critic, came to Spain he wanted to see the Goyas and Velasquezes to have publishable ecstasies about them, but he liked the Grecos better. He was not content to like Greco better; he had to like him alone, so he wrote a book proving what poor painters Goya and Velasquez were in order to exalt Greco, and the yardstick that he chose to judge these painters by was their respective paintings of the crucifixion of Our Lord.
Now it would be hard to do anything stupider than this because of the three only Greco believed in Our Lord or took any interest in his crucifixion. You can only judge a painter by the way he paints the things he believes in or cares for and the things he hates; and to judge Velasquez, who believed in costume, and in the importance of painting as painting, by a portrait of a nearly naked man on a cross who had been painted, Velasquez must have felt, very satisfactorily in the same position before, and in whom Velasquez took no interest at all, is not intelligent.
Goya was like Stendhal; the sight of a priest could stimulate either of those good anti-clericals into a rage of production. Goya's crucifixion is a cynically romantic, wooden oleograph that could serve as a poster for the announcement of crucifixions in the manner of bullfight posters. A crucifixion of six carefully selected Christs will take place at ñe o'clock in the Monumental Golgotha of Madrid, government permission having been obtained. The following well-known, accredited and notable crucifiers will officiate, each accompanied by his cuadrilla of nailers, hammerers, cross-raisers and spade-men, etc.
Greco liked to paint religious pictures because he was very evidently religious and because his incomparable art was not then limited to accurate reproducing of the faces of the noblemen who were his sitters for portraits and he could go as far into his other world as he wanted and, consciously or unconsciously, paint saints, apostles, Christs and Virgins with the androgynous faces and forms that filled his imagination.
One time in Paris I was talking to a girl who was writing a fictionalized life of El Greco and I said to her, "Do you make him a maricón?"
"No," she said. "Why should I?"
"Did you ever look at the pictures?"
"Yes, of course."
"Did you ever see more classic examples anywhere than he painted? Do you think that was all accident or do you think all those citizens were queer? The only saint I know who is universally represented as built that way is San Sebastian. Greco made them all that way. Look at the pictures. Don't take my word for it."
"I hadn't thought of that."
"Think it over," I said, "if you are writing a life of him."
"It's too late now," she said. "The book is done."
Velasquez believed in painting in costume, in dogs, in dwarfs, and in painting again. Goya did not believe in costume but he did believe in blacks and in grays, in dust and in light, in high places rising from plains, in the country around Madrid, in movement, in his own cojones, in painting, in etching, and in what he had seen, felt, touched, handled, smelled, enjoyed, drunk, mounted, suffered, spewed-up, lain-with, suspected, observed, loved, hated, lusted, feared, detested, admired, loathed, and destroyed. Naturally no painter has been able to paint all that but he tried. El Greco believed in the city of Toledo, in its location and construction, in some of the people who lived in it, in blues, grays, greens and yellows, in reds, in the holy ghost, in the communion and fellowship of saints, in painting, in life after death and death after life and in fairies. If he was one he should redeem, for the tribe, the prissy exhibitionistic, aunt-like, withered old maid moral arrogance of a Gide; the lazy, conceited debauchery of a Wilde who betrayed a generation; the nasty, sentimental pawing of humanity of a Whitman and all the mincing gentry. Viva El Greco El Rey de los Maricónes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The ability of a bullfighter with the muleta is what, in the end, determines his ranking in the profession, for it is the most difficult of all the phases of modern bullfighting to dominate and is the part of the bullfight where the genius of a matador has greatest latitude for expression. It is with the muleta that a reputation is made and it is by the extent of this ability to give a complete, imaginative, artistic and emotional performance with the muleta, granted that he has a good bull, that a bullfighter is paid much or little. To draw a brave bull in Madrid, have him come in ideal condition to the final act and then, through a limited repertoire, not be able to take advantage of his bravery and nobility to make a brilliant faena finishes a bullfighter's chance of a successful career. For bullfighters are now categoried, classed and paid, strangely enough, not by what they actually do, for the bull may upset their performance, they themselves may be ill, they may not be altogether recovered from a horn wound, or they may simply have off-days; but by what they are capable of doing under most favorable conditions. If the spectators know the matador is capable of executing a complete, consecutive series of passes with the muleta in which there will be valor, art, understanding and, above all, beauty and great emotion, they will put up with mediocre work, cowardly work, disastrous work because they have the hope sooner or later of seeing the complete faena; the faena that takes a man out of himself and makes him feel immortal while it is proceeding, that gives him an ecstasy, that is, while momentary, as profound as any religious ecstasy; moving all the people in the ring together and increasing in emotional intensity as it proceeds, carrying the bullfighter with it, he playing on the crowd through the bull and being moved as it responds in a growing ecstasy of ordered, formal, passionate, increasing disregard for death that leaves you, when it is over, and the death administered to the animal that has made it possible, as empty, as changed and as sad as any major emotion will leave you.
A bullfighter who can do a great faena is at the top of his profession as long as he is believed capable of still doing it, if the conditions are favorable; but a bullfighter who has shown his inability to do a great faena with the conditions right, who is lacking in artistry and genius with the muleta even though he be brave, honorable, skillful and not lacking in knowledge of his work, will always be one of the day laborers of bullfighting and paid accordingly.
It is impossible to believe the emotional an
d spiritual intensity and pure, classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal and a piece of scarlet serge draped over a stick. If you do not choose to believe it possible and want to regard it all as nonsense you may be able to prove you are right by going to a bullfight in which nothing magical occurs; and there are many of them; enough always so you will be able to prove it to your own satisfaction. But if you should ever see the real thing you would know it. It is an experience that either you will have in your life or you will never have. However, there is no way you can be sure you will ever see a great faena in bullfighting unless you go to many bullfights. But if you ever do see one, finished by a great estocada, you will know it and there will be many things you will forget before it will be gone.
Technically, the muleta is used to defend the man from the charge of the bull, to regulate the carriage of the bull's head, to correct a tendency he may have to hook to one side or the other, to tire him and place him in position for killing and, in killing, to furnish an object for him to charge in place of the man's body as the matador goes in on him with the sword.
The muleta is, in principal, held in the left hand and the sword in the right and passes made with the muleta in the left hand are of greater merit than those made with it in the right since when it is held in the right hand, or in both hands, it is spread wide by the sword and the bull having a larger lure to charge may pass farther from the man's body and also, by the swing of the larger lure, be sent away to a greater distance before recharging; thus allowing the man more time to prepare his next pass.
The greatest pass with the muleta, the most dangerous to make and the most beautiful to see is the natural. In this the man faces the bull with the muleta held in his left hand, the sword in his right, the left arm hanging naturally at his side, the scarlet cloth dropping in a fold over the stick that supports it and which the man holds as you see in the picture. The man walks toward the bull and cites him with the muleta and as he charges the man simply sways with the charge, swinging his left arm ahead of the bull's horns, the man's body following the curve of the charge, the bull's horns opposite his body, the man's feet still, he slowly swings his arm holding the cloth ahead of the bull and pivots, making a turn of a quarter-circle with the bull. If the bull stops the man may cite him again and describe another quarter of a circle with him, and again, and Again, and again. I have seen it done six successive times; the man seeming to hold the bull with the muleta as though by magic. If the bull instead of stopping with the charge, and what stops him is a final flick the man gives the lowest end of the cloth at the end of each pass, and the great twist that has been given his spinal column through the curve the matador has forced him to describe in bending him around, turns and recharges, the man may get rid of him by a pase de pecho, or pass past the chest. This is the reverse of the pass natural. Instead of the bull coming from in front and the man moving the muleta slowly before his charge, in the pase de pecho the bull, having turned, comes from behind or from the side, and the man swings the muleta forward, lets the bull go past the man's chest and sends him away with the sweep of the folds of scarlet cloth. The chest pass is the most impressive when it completes a series of naturals or when it is forced by an unexpected return and charge of the bull and is used by the man to save himself rather than as a planned manoeuvre. The ability to execute a series of naturals and then to finish them off with the chest pass mark a real bullfighter.
First it takes courage to cite the bull for a true natural when there are so many other passes in which the bullfighter exposes himself less; it takes serenity to await the arrival of the bull with the unspread muleta low in the left hand, knowing that if he does not take the small lure offered he will take the man, then it takes great ability to move the muleta ahead of his charge, keeping him well centred in it, the elbow straight as the arm moves, swinging straight, and to follow the curve with the body without moving the location of the feet. It is a difficult pass to make properly four times in succession before a mirror in a drawing room without any bull being present and if you make it seven times you will be dizzy enough. There are many bullfighters who never learn to make it presentably at all. To do it well, without contortion, keeping the lines of the figure with the horn of the bull so close to the man's waist that they would only have to move up an inch or two to gore, controlling the bull's charge by the movement of arm and wrist and keeping him centred in the cloth, stopping him with the wrist flick at just the proper moment, repeating this three or four or five times takes a bullfighter and an artist.
The natural can be tricked by doing it with the right hand, the muleta spread wide with the sword and the man gyrating on his feet so that the bull follows a sort of half spin made by man and muleta rather than a slowly moved arm and wrist. There are many passes made with the right hand that are of positive merit, but in almost all the sword with its point pricked into the cloth and the hilt held in the same hand with the stick enlarges the spread of the muleta and by giving it greater extent enables the bullfighter to pass the bull farther from his body if he wishes. He may pass him close, but he has a means of passing him farther away in case of necessity that the man working with the muleta in his left hand does not possess.
Aside from the natural and the pecho, the principal passes with the muleta are the ayudados, passes made with sword pricked into the muleta and the two held in both hands. These passes are either called por alto or por bajo, depending on whether the muleta passes over the bull's horns or is swung below the bull's muzzle.
All passes, and half passes, that is those in which the bull does not completely pass the man, made with the muleta have a definite purpose. Nothing so punishes a bull that is strong and willing to charge as a series of naturals which at the same time that they are twisting and tiring him make him follow the lure and the man with his left horn, training him to take the direction the man wants him to take as he later goes in to kill. A bull whose neck muscles have not been sufficiently tired and who carries his head high, will after a series of ayudados por alto; passes made with the muleta and sword held in both hands and the muleta held high so that the bull drives up after it as he goes by the man; have his muscles tired so the head will be much lower. If he is tired and carries his head too low the matador can bring it up, temporarily, with the same pass if he modifies it and does not wait for the carriage of the head to fall again before he goes in to kill. The low passes, made with a swing and a sharp twist of the muleta, sometimes a slow-drawing swing and flip of the lower part of the cloth, and the quick chops back and forth are for bulls that are still too strong on their feet or difficult to fix in one spot. They are made from in front of bulls that will not pass and the merit of the bullfighter consists in his foot-work in never losing his place at the head of the animal, never retreating more than he needs to, and with the movements of his muleta dominating the animal, making him turn sharply on himself, wearing him down quickly, and fixing him in position. A bull that will not pass, that is charge from a certain distance with sufficient force so that if the man remains still and moves the muleta properly the bull will pass him entirely, is either a cowardly bull or a bull who has been so used in the fight that he has lost all buoyancy and will no longer attack. A skillful matador can by a few passes that he forces at close range and is careful to keep suave, not turning the bull too much on himself or twisting his legs, make the cowardly bull believe that the muleta is not a punishment; that he will not be hurt if he charges, and convert the cowardly bull into the semblance of a brave bull by giving him confidence. In the same way, by working delicately and wisely, he can light up the bull that has lost his charging ability and bring him out of his defense and into the offensive again. To do this a bullfighter must take great chances as the only way to give a bull confidence, to force him to charge when he is on the defensive and to master him is to work as close to him as you can get, leave him just enough of his own terrain to stand on, as Belmonte puts it, and in provoking the charge from such close range the bul
lfighter has no way to avoid being caught if he guesses wrong and no time to prepare his passes. His reflexes must be perfect and he must know bulls. If at the same time he is graceful you may be sure that grace is an altogether inherent quality and not a pose. You may be able to pose as the horns approach from a distance, but there is no time to pose when you are between them, or shifting back and forth to a little place of safety at the corner of his neck as by giving him the muleta on one side and then withdrawing it, pricking him with the point of the sword or the muleta stick to make him turn, you wear him down, or light him up when he does not want to charge.
There is a whole school of bullfighting in which grace is developed until it is the one essential and the passing of the horn past the man's belly eliminated as far as possible, which was inaugurated and developed by Rafael El Gallo. El Gallo was too great and sensitive an artist to be a complete bullfighter so he gradually avoided, as much as possible, those parts of the bullfight which had to do with or were capable of bringing on death, either of the man or the bull, but most especially of the man. In this way he developed a way of working with the bull in which grace, picturesqueness, and true beauty of movement replaced and avoided the dangerous classicism of the bullfight as he found it. Juan Belmonte took such of Gallo's inventions as he wanted and combined them with the classic style and then developed the two into his own great revolutionary style. Gallo was as much of an inventor as was Belmonte, he had more grace, and if he would have had the cold, passionate, wolf-courage of Belmonte there could never have been a greater bullfighter. The nearest you come to that combination was Joselito, his brother, and his only fault was that everything in bullfighting was so easy for him to do that it was difficult for him to give it the emotion that was always supplied by Belmonte's evident physical inferiority, not only to the animal he was facing but to every one who was working with him and most of those who were watching him. Watching Joselito was like reading about D'Artagnan when you were a boy. You did not worry about him finally because he had too much ability. He was too good, too talented. He had to be killed before the danger ever really showed. Now the essence of the greatest emotional appeal of bullfighting is the feeling of immortality that the bullfighter feels in the middle of a great faena and that he gives to the spectators. He is performing a work of art and he is playing with death, bringing it closer, closer, closer, to himself, a death that you know is in the horns because you have the canvas-covered bodies of the horses on the sand to prove it. He gives the feeling of his immortality, and, as you watch it, it becomes yours. Then when it belongs to both of you, he proves it with the sword.
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