Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years

by Thomas Mann

  I ordered my coachman to go by way of the Avenida-Park and the Campo Grande, where it was quieter. The professor and his wife sat on the back seat, Zouzou and I facing them, and Dom Miguel took the seat beside the coachman. The ride passed in silence or with very brief exchanges, due principally to Senhora Maria's extremely dignified, indeed stern, demeanour, which admitted of no chitchat. Once, to be sure, her husband calmly addressed a remark to me, but before answering I involuntarily glanced toward the sombre lady in the Iberian headdress and replied with reserve. Her black amber ear-rings oscillated, set in motion by the light jolting of the carriage.

  At the entrance to the arena, the traffic was dense. Advancing very slowly between the other equipages, we had to wait patiently for our turn to dismount. Then the vast circle of the amphitheatre engulfed us with its barriers, pillared balustrades, and ascending rows of seats, of which only a few were still unoccupied. Beribboned officials directed us to our seats on the shady side at a convenient height above the yellow circle strewn with tanbark and sand. The huge arena filled quickly to the last seat. Kuckuck had not exaggerated the picturesque impressiveness of its appearance. It was a colourful collective portrait of a whole national society, an occasion on which the aristocracy, symbolically at least and somewhat shamefacedly, accommodated itself to the customs of the folk sitting opposite in the blazing sun. Not a few ladies, even foreigners like Frau von Hueon and the Princess Maurocordato, had provided themselves with high combs and mantilhas; indeed, some of them had imitated in their dress the gold and silver embroidery of the peasant costume, and the formal attire of the men seemed a mark of respect toward the folk — prompted at least by the popular character of the occasion.

  The mood of the enormous circle seemed expectant yet subdued. It differed markedly even on the sunny side, or especially there, from the nasty vulgarity so common among crowds at ordinary sporting-events. Excitement, tension, I felt them myself; but as far as one could see in the thousands of faces staring down at the still empty battleground, whose yellow would soon be stained with pools of blood, these emotions seemed restrained, held in check by a certain air of consecration. The music broke off and changed from a Moorish-Spanish concert piece to the national anthem as the Prince, a lean man with a star on his frock coat and a chrysanthemum in his buttonhole, entered his loge. With him was his wife, wearing a mantilha. Everyone got up and applauded. This was to happen again in honour of a different individual.

  These dignitaries had entered at one minute before three. On the stroke of the hour, to a continuing musical accompaniment, the procession moved out of the big centre gate, led by three men bearing swords, epaulets over their short embroidered jackets, colourful tight trousers extending to the middle of their calves, white stockings, and buckled shoes. Behind them strode the bandarilheiros, carrying their pointed, bright-coloured darts, and the capeadores, arrayed in similar style, their narrow black cravats dangling over their shirts, their short red capes across their arms. They were followed by a cavalcade of picadores armed with lances, their hats strapped beneath their chins, mounted on horses whose padding hung like mattresses on chest and flank. A team of donkeys adorned with flowers and ribbons brought up the rear. The procession moved directly across the yellow circle toward the Prince's box and there dispersed after each member had made a formal bow. I saw some of the toireadores cross themselves as they made their way to the protection of the barrier.

  All at once the little orchestra again stopped in the middle of a selection. A single very high trumpet note rang out. The ensuing stillness was complete. Through a little gate which I had not noticed before and which had suddenly been thrown open, there breaks — I use the present tense, because the experience is so vivid to me — something elemental, running, the steer, black, heavy, mighty, a visibly irresistible concentration of procreative and murderous force, in which earlier, older peoples certainly saw a god-animal, the animal god, with little, threatening, rolling eyes and horns twisted like drinking-horns affixed to his broad forehead, bending a little upward at the points, and clearly charged with death. He runs forward, stops with forelegs braced, glares angrily at the red cloth that one of the capeadotes has spread out on the sand in front of him with the gesture of a servitor, throws himself at it, rams one horn into it, and bores the cloth into the ground. Just as he is about to shift horns, the little human snatches the cloth away, springs behind him, and as this mass of power swings ponderously on itself two bandarilheiros plant their bright-coloured darts in the cushion of fat at the back of his neck. There they sit now; barbed, no doubt, they sway but hold fast, standing out at an angle to his body through the rest of the contest. A third man has planted a short feathered lance in the exact middle of his neck, and he carries this decoration, like the spreading wings of a dove, through the remainder of his deadly battle against death.

  I sat between Kuckuck and Dona Maria Pia. In a low voice the professor provided me with an occasional commentary on the proceedings. I learned from him the names of the various passes. I heard him say that until that day the bull had led a lordly life in the open fields, cared for and attended with the greatest solicitude and courtesy. My neighbour to the right, the august lady, remained silent. She only took her eyes off the god of procreation and slaughter and what was happening to him long enough to direct a glance of reproof toward her husband when he spoke. Her pale, severe face in the shadow of the mantilha was expressionless, but her bosom rose and fell faster and faster and, certain of being unobserved, I watched that face and the ill-controlled surging of that bosom more than I watched the sacrificial animal with the lance in his back, the ridiculously tiny wings, and the blood beginning to streak his sides.

  I call him a sacrifice because one would have to be dull indeed not to feel the atmosphere that lay over all, at once oppressive and solemnly joyous, a unique mingling of jest, blood, and dedication, primitive holiday-making combined with the profound ceremonial of death. Later in my carriage when he was at liberty to speak, the professor discoursed about all this, but his erudition added nothing essential to what my alert and subtle intelligence had divined. The jest, combined with rage, burst forth a few minutes later when the bull, obviously having reached the conclusion that things could not possibly turn out well for him, that force and wit were unequally matched, turned round in the direction of the gate through which he had entered with the intention of trotting back to his stall, the ribboned darts still hanging from his neck. There was a storm of outraged, scornful laughter. People sprang to their feet, on the sunny side especially, but on ours as well; there were whistles, shouts, catcalls, curses. My august companion jumped up, whistled with startling shrillness, made a face at the coward, and emitted a sonorous trill of disdainful laughter. Picadores dashed into the bull's path and pushed at him with their blunt lances. New banderillas were rammed into his neck and shoulders, some of them equipped with firecrackers to enliven him; they went off with a bang and a hiss against his hide. Under such provocation the brief attack of reason which had so incensed the crowd was quickly transformed into the blind rage appropriate to his might and to this game of death. Once more he played his part and did not fail again. A horse and rider sprawled in the sand. A capeador who had stumbled was unhappily lifted on the mighty drinking-horns and hurled into the air. He fell heavily. While the wild beast was being drawn away from the motionless body by exploiting his prejudice against red cloth, the man was lifted and carried out amid honourable applause, which may have been for him or, equally, for the toiro. Very likely it was for both. Maria da Cruz joined in, alternately clapping her hands and crossing herself rapidly as she murmured in her own tongue what may have been a prayer for the fallen man.

  The professor expressed the opinion that it would amount to no more than a couple of broken ribs and a concussion. 'Here cames Ribeiro,' he added, 'a notable young man.' From the group of actors there now emerged an espada, who was greeted with ah's and cheers that testified to his popularity. While all the rest stood
back, he occupied the arena alone with the bleeding, maddened bull. Even during the procession I had been struck by him, for my eye automatically selects from among the commonplace whatever is elegant and beautiful. This Ribeiro was eighteen or nineteen years old and extremely handsome. He wore his black hair smooth and imparted, brushed forward over his brow. On his finely chiselled Spanish face there was the trace of a smile, called forth perhaps by the applause or perhaps simply by his contempt for death and his awareness of his own prowess. His narrowed black eyes looked out with quiet earnestness. The short embroidered jacket with epaulets and sleeves narrowing at the wrists became him — ah, it was in just such a costume that my godfather Schimmelpreester had once dressed me — it became him as admirably as it had me. I saw that he was of slender build, with noble hands. In one hand he carried a bare bright Damascus blade, which he handled like a cane; in the other he held a red cape. Reaching the centre of the arena, which was already torn and blood-flecked, he dropped the sword and gestured with his cape at the bull standing some distance off shaking the banderillas. Then he stood motionless and watched with that barely perceptible smile and that earnest expression of the eyes the maddened charge of the frightful martyr, offering himself as a target like a tree standing bare to the lightning. He stood as though rooted — too long, it was certain; one would have had to know him well not to be horribly sure that in the next twinkling of an eye he would be hurled to the ground, gored, massacred, trampled to bits. Instead of that, something extremely graceful occurred, something casual and expert that produced a magnificent picture. The horns already had him, they had ripped a bit of embroidery from his jacket, when, with a single easy gesture of the hand that communicated itself to the cape, he directed those murderous instruments to where he no longer was, as a graceful swing of the hips brought him up against the monster's flank, and the human figure, arm now extended along the black back to where the horns were plunging into the fluttering cape, blended with the beast in an inspired design. The crowd leaped up, shouting: 'Ribeiro!' and 'Toiro!' and applauding. I did so myself and so did the regal Iberian beside me. Back and forth I glanced, from her surging breast to the living statue of man and animal, now rapidly dissolving, for more and more the stern and elemental person of this woman seemed to me one with the game of blood below.

  In his duet with the toiro Ribeiro performed various other virtuoso feats in which he was clearly intent on creating ballet motifs at instants of extreme danger, and on the plastic mingling of the awesome and the elegant. Once when the weakened bull, disgusted by the futility of his rage, turned away and stood brooding dully by himself, his partner was seen to turn his back and kneel in the sand, very slim and erect with raised arms and bowed head, spreading the cape behind him. That seemed daring indeed, but he was no doubt sure of the momentary lethargy of the horned devil. Once, running in front of the bull, he half fell on one hand while with the other he let the seductive red cape divert the raging beast to one side. In the next instant he had sprung to his feet and vaulted lightly over the creature's back. He never acknowledged the continual applause, for it was obviously meant for the toiro as well, who had no mind for applause or acknowledgement. I half feared the man might consider it unseemly to play such tricks on a sacrificial creature that had been raised with courtesy on the open plains. But that was just the point of the jest and, in this ancient folk ceremonial, was an element in the cult of blood.

  To end the game, Ribeiro ran over to the sword he had dropped and stood, one knee bent, spreading his cape in the usual provocative fashion. With serious gaze he watched the bull charge at a heavy gallop with horns levelled. He let him come very close, almost upon him, and in the final instant snatched the sword from the ground and drove the slender, bright steel half way to the hilt in the animal's neck. The bull crumpled, wheeling massively. For a moment he forced one horn into the ground as though it were the red cloth, then he fell on his side and his eyes glazed.

  It was indeed the most elegant slaughter. I can still see Ribeiro, his cape under his arm, walking away on tiptoe as though fearful of making a sound, glancing back the while at the fallen creature that moved no more. Before that, during the brief death scene, the public had risen from their seats as one man and given the tribute of their applause to the hero of this game of death, who, but for his early attempt to flee, had conducted himself admirably. The applause lasted until he had been carted off by the colourful mule team and wagon. Ribeiro walked beside him as though to do him a final honour. He did not return. Later, under another name, in a different role, and as part of a double image, he was to reappear in my life. But of that in its proper place.

  We saw two more bulls that were not so good as the first, nor were the espadas, one of whom drove in the sword so clumsily that the animal haemorrhaged but did not fall. He stood there like someone vomiting, legs braced and neck extended, spewing out thick waves of blood onto the sand, an unpleasant sight. A heavy-set matador of vain deportment and exaggeratedly brilliant dress had to give him the coup de grâce, and so the hilts of two swords stuck out of his body. We left. In the carriage, then, Maria Pia's husband provided us with a learned commentary on what we had just seen — I, for the first time. He spoke of a very ancient Roman shrine whose existence testified to a deep descent from the high cult level of Christianity to the service of a deity well disposed toward blood whose worship, through the wide popularity of the rites, almost outstripped that of the Lord Jesus as a world religion. Its converts had been baptized not with water, but with the blood of a bull, who was perhaps the god himself, though the god lived too in the one who spilled his blood. For this teaching contained something that unified its believers irrevocably, joining them in life and in death; and its mystery consisted in the equality and identity of slayer and slain, axe and victim, arrow and target. ... I listened to all this with only half an ear, only in so far as it did not interfere with my absorption in the woman whose image and being had been so vastly enhanced by the folk festival, who had, as it were, been truly and completely herself for the first time, ripe for observation. Her bosom was now at rest. I longed to see it surge again.

  I will not conceal the fact that Zouzou had gone completely out of my mind during the game of blood. For this reason I was all the more determined to follow her instructions at last and, for God's sake, to show her the pictures that she claimed as her own — those nude studies of Zaza with Zouzou's curls at the temples. I had been invited to the Kuckucks' for lunch the following day. A shower during the night had cooled the air; a light coat was in order, and in the inside pocket I put the roll of drawings. Hurtado, too, was there. At table the conversation turned on yesterday's spectacle, and to please the professor I inquired further about the religion that had been driven from the field, the cult that marked a long step down from Christianity. He could not add much, but answered that those rites had not been so completely driven from the field, for the smoking blood of a victim — the god's blood, that is — had always been a part of the pious, popular ceremonials of mankind, and he sketched a connexion between the sacrament of communion and the festal, fatal drama of the day before. I looked at the lady of the house, curious to see whedier or not her bosom was at rest.

  After coffee I said farewell to the ladies, planning to pay a final call on my last day. I rode down on the cable car with the gentlemen, who were returning to the museum, and when we arrived I said good-bye to them, with repeated thanks, leaving the question of seeing them again to an indeterminate future. I acted as though I meant to walk back to the Savoy Palace, but turning around and finding the coast clear, I took the next cable car up again.

  I knew the gate in the fence in front of the little house would be open. The earlier chill had given place to a mild and sunny autumn day. This was the hour for Dona Maria Pia's siesta. I could be sure of finding Zouzou in the rear garden. With cautious but rapid strides I walked toward it along the gravel path that led around the side of the house. Dahlias and asters were blooming in the midd
le of the small lawn. The appointed bench stood off to the right, surrounded by a semicircle of oleander bushes. The dear child was sitting there half in shadow, wearing a dress very like the one in which I had seen her first, loose, as she liked a dress to be, blue-striped, with a belt of the same material around the waist and some lacework at the edge of the half-length sleeves. She was reading a book and although she must have heard my cautious approach, she did not look up until I was in front of her. My heart pounded.

  'Ah?' she said. Her lips, like the beautiful ivory tint of her skin, seemed somewhat paler than usual. 'Still here?'

  'Here again, Zouzou. I have been down to the bottom of the hill. I came back secretly, as we planned, to fulfil my promise.'

  'How praiseworthy!' she said. 'Monsieur le marquis has remembered an obligation — without undue haste. This bench has slowly become a kind of waiting-room -' She had said more than she intended and bit her lip.

  'How could you imagine,' I hastened to reply, 'that I would fail to live up to the arrangement we made in the beautiful cloister! May I sit down with you? This bench in the bushes is a good deal more private than the ones at the tennis court. I am afraid I shall have to neglect the game again and forget -'

  'Not at all, the Meyer-Novaros across the ocean will certainly have a tennis court.'

  'Possibly. But it won't be the same thing. Leaving Lisbon, Zouzou, is very hard for me. I have said good-bye to your esteemed papa. How memorably he talked at luncheon about the pious ceremonials of mankind! The corrida yesterday was, after all — I'll say this at least, a curious experience.'

  'I did not watch it very closely. Your attention, too, seemed to be divided — as you like it to be. But to the point, marquis! Where are my drawings?'