Part 8

From the other end of the hall Maria was coming from the garden. She had been dreaming by herself when she heard the approaching noise of the heavily shod feet of the keepers coming in her direction, and wondered what it could be, since it was not yet the season for tourists. Shy, like a curious young doe, she glided noiselessly into the presence of the group. She was wrapped in an old green shawl, and her bare feet were in white, soft-soled slippers. Her hair, which she had just washed in the sultana’s fountain, was hanging loosely over her ivory-white neck and shoulders. She made as if to retrace her steps when she saw Don Jose, but Jose was much too quick, the very instant of her appearance he had called out:

“There goes Señorita Maria. How beautiful she has grown! There goes Señorita Maria! How wonderful she has grown! Of course she does not remember me any more,” he added petulantly and uncovered his head, bowing elegantly.

“Come over, Maria,” her father called. “It is Jose. You certainly do remember him, although you have never seen him in this garb.”

Maria slowly approached the group and curtsied ceremoniously before the young man.

“What beauty!” exclaimed the bull-fighter, brutally and frankly looking the girl in the face, as only a Spaniard would.

It made Maria tremble from head to foot to be looked at in that way. But she answered promptly:

“Of course I do remember Doña Gloria’s son. And I recollect having been told that he was occasionally fighting bulls in the small _pueblos_.”

“He is fighting in the rings of Seville and Madrid now,” Don Hermanos corrected her. “See his matador costume.”

Maria looked at the young man, and then with a loud laugh she suddenly rushed past him and disappeared, faun-like, before he had had time to turn, for he was looking at Don Hermanos while he was spoken of.

Don Hermanos showed the bull-fighter the other great halls of the Alcazar, but Jose was not half as interested as before. He was continually looking elsewhere through the open portals and gates, through the openings of the narrow alleys and subterranean halls.

“This used to be the great dancing hall of the sultan. This is the dais upon which the _bayaderes_ danced. And, further, on the other side, upon this black-veined marble block, many a beautiful slave has lost her head if she had been unfaithful to the sultan, or if such was his pleasure.”

But the bull-fighter was not much interested. He suddenly pulled out his heavy gold watch from his pocket, and announced that he had to be on his way to the ring, but that he would return frequently and see at his leisure the wonders and the beauties of the Alcazar, adding, “Of which your daughter Maria is the most beautiful.”

Don Hermanos bowed profoundly. True, he had known Jose when he was the ragged scamp of the Triana, but a bull-fighter is a high personage, and what such a man said about his daughter was not to be disdained.

On the way out, Don Jose asked whether he could not get a drink of water, of which he was in need. Don Hermanos knew that it was a pretext to stop at the house for a few moments. Don Hermanos’s wife received the young bull-fighter, bowing profoundly, patting him, admiring him, wishing him good luck, asking him how his mother was and how his sisters were. But the beautiful Maria was not around.

Jose listened carefully, while the old woman spoke to him and while the men stood about him in admiration, to hear some one breathing behind the curtain that separated the room in two. He listened for a sound behind the door at the top of the stairs that led to the upper rooms from the middle of the lower one. And then his eyes saddened, and he was ready to go, when the Doña Hermanos told him:

“But the water you have asked for, Don Jose? The glass of water is on the table. Have you forgotten you were thirsty?”

He laughed loudly as he stood up and drank the glass.

“Indeed, I have forgotten,” he said.

And then the keepers looked at one another and smiled as they preceded Jose outside, each one patting him familiarly on the shoulder.

“Are they good bulls, the ones you are fighting today, big and fierce?”

“Wonderful animals,” Don Jose answered, “Miuras.”

“Miuras!” they all repeated aloud, with eyes wide open, saying to one another: “Do you hear? Miuras today in the bull-ring of Seville!”

And in the glances they exchanged with one another was all the lore of the bull-ring; for the bulls bred by Count Miura were reputed to be the fiercest of all, having killed many a great matador who had appeared with them in the ring. And it seemed to Don Jose that at that moment he heard from behind the latticed window overhead a deep gasp. His chest broadened, and his heart rose higher as he walked out of the gate, marching with the same rhythm he used coming out from the big door that led into the arena, while music played the matador tune.

III

An hour later Maria was sitting on the marble bench in the garden of the sultana, and had a vision of an immense arena divided in half by a strong shadow, with tiers of stone seats and balconies covered with shawls of a hundred gay colors, and the queen herself sitting in the king’s balcony. A black bull was in the middle of the arena, with head bent low, snorting and bellowing, pawing the sand under him. Don Jose with a red _capa_ hiding the red-hilted spade underneath, was facing the brute.

A moment later her father and the other keepers were attracted to her by a terrific shriek. She was hiding her face in her hands and yelling: “The bull! The bull!” when they neared her.

“That child of yours does not seem to be well,” said a keeper to Don Hermanos after Maria had been led weeping to her home.

But Don Hermanos smiled. He knew what the trouble was. A great matador as a son-in-law was a pleasant prospect for his daughter.

Maria drank a glass of water which was given her by her mother, and seemed to have regained her composure immediately. She went to the mirror to fix her hair, and having looked at herself carefully, she proceeded to dress to go out. She asked her mother to accompany her. No self-respecting Sevillana would ever go out alone. Maria had till then, considering herself a child, always gone about alone. Her mother smiled as she answered:

“Give me time to get ready!”

It took the mother a full hour to get herself ready. On going out into the populated street, cool now because the sun was no longer shedding its straight rays, the two women heard the cry of the barefoot boys in rags selling papers. Don Jose had been wounded severely by the first bull he had fought.

“Quick, Mother!” Maria begged, and dragging the old woman by the hand she began to run in the direction of her old home in the Triana, where she was certain Don Jose would be brought to his mother.

But on arriving there they were told that the Gitanas had moved out from the “Casa” to a more comfortable home, now that Jose was earning so much money. And when the former neighbors heard about the accident that had happened, they left their cooking-pots, and the children left their play in the mud, and howling and running they followed the two women to the home of the matador.

Jose’s face was white from the loss of blood. He was lying stretched out on a white bed. A number of friends and the priest and a doctor crowded the room.

“Will he die?” Maria screamed, looking up at the physician.

The man shook his head and put a finger to his mouth.

“No noise, please.”

And then Jose opened his eyes and saw Maria; and his faint lips murmured her name.

Jose did get better; he had not been wounded in any vital part of his body. He was only weak because of the blood he had lost before they had succeeded in driving away the bull that had gored him. Daily, Maria and her mother would come to sit at his bedside and care for him. When the wounds in his upper thighs had healed, it was upon Maria’s shoulder that he first left the bed to sun himself on the balcony. And with that marvelous recuperating power of youth he was able before the summer to appear again in the ring.

Maria sat in a box with her mother watching the first appearance. And the cheering of the crowd as he bowed before the balcony of the queen was deafening. Maria, paler than usual, was not interested in the bull-fight as such. To her it was merely the man she loved who was now facing a formidable brute. It was her man that was in danger--in danger of that black bull, snorting and running wildly about the arena. She could not appreciate the cheers that came, round after round, as Don Jose with graceful fleetness avoided the charging animal by fooling him with the red _capa_ that he held in his hand. She could not understand why he did not use the spade and kill the brute. To her mind every bull was the same that had wounded the man she loved.

The crowd cheered and yelled in appreciation of their idol’s dangerous play. Suddenly there was a great silence. The _banderilleros_ had done their work and distanced themselves from the animal. The matador alone faced him now. He played and enraged the bull for a few minutes, then he poised himself with his spade for the final thrust. But when the bull made a movement, courage failed him, and he stepped aside. And the same crowd that had been cheering so wildly now began to hoot him. The other matadors sprang to his help and began to throw their red _capas_ over the bull. Don Jose shook his head sorrowfully without looking up, and waving his quadrilla aside, he again posed himself before the bull, trying to get him to lower his head. There was silence again. Maria’s heart stood still. And while the crowd was hooting again the matador, who had side-stepped for a second time, her own heart was glad, for he was there yet and alive. Her mother and the mother of the matador were pale with anger and shame. What had happened to Jose? The bugle gave a warning to the matador that he must be quick about his business. His time was up. And this time the matador did not side-step. His thrust was sure and deep, and the crowd cheered wildly, although when the ring had been cleared, the _afficianadoes_ were looking at one another and shaking their heads, as if saying, “The best days of the Gitana are over.” Never before in his short, but glorious, career had he been known to side-step a charging bull.

He did not do much better with the second animal. And it was only because they remembered how severely he had been wounded before that the crowd did not do the usual things on such occasions, throwing the hard cushions underneath them into the arena, and even empty bottles and stones. Even Jose’s mother looked coldly at her son when he returned home with her in the waiting carriage, for the papers were sure to report his lack of courage. Only Maria was happy. He had come out of the fight alive and he had killed the bulls.

The next few weeks took the matador out of the city to fight in other _pueblos_. It was understood that he was going to marry Maria as soon as he returned from the season’s activities. Left alone, Maria, now the acknowledged fiancée of Don Jose, again took possession of the Alcazar. But everything within it was now filled with Joses. Joses in silken garb. Joses in the center of bull-rings. Joses wounded, Joses side-stepping, and crowds upon tiers and tiers in a large circle. She tried to conjure again the old visions of sultanas and _bayaderes_ dancing in the great halls and in the gardens. And when they did appear, Don Jose was somewhere about them. And she would harshly order her vision figures to disappear, for they all looked at him so longingly. And they were all so much more beautiful than she was.

She would wait trembling with fear the afternoons she knew he had appeared in the distant bull-rings for a telegram that he sent her at the end of every _corrida_. He gave no details, only telling her that all was well and that he loved her. But in reality things were not as well with him as they had been before. There was great doubt whether he would ever be engaged again to fight in the bull-ring after that season. There was great dissatisfaction with his work. He still gave them great thrills in playing with the bull, but courage generally failed him when he faced the animal with spade in hand. He could not forget that he had been wounded. And he played longer with the animals than he should have done to avoid as long as possible the last moment. And again and again the warning bugle had sounded, the papers reported. Don Hermanos was far from being satisfied with his future son-in-law. Yet all Maria cared was that Jose was alive and untouched by the brutal beasts.

She rejoiced to the fullest of her soul when he returned. Only Don Hermanos was not satisfied to see him walk about in street clothes instead of the matador uniform, like the others of his profession. Every day after sundown Jose would come to the Alcazar, and Maria would show him the great halls and the gardens and tell him the legends of the place. She had found again the Alcazar now that he was near her. Speaking to him, all the old charm of the palace had returned. She was not even jealous of the sultanas she now conjured from the ceramic walls and from behind the balconies overhead.

As the day of her wedding approached, Don Jose spoke to her.

“How will you ever be able to live within the poor walls of your home after having lived here amid such great beauties?”

Maria laughed and laughed. Don Jose intended to leave Seville and go elsewhere. He had saved quite a goodly amount of money. He had premonitions about his being killed in the ring if he should continue to fight next season. An old sorceress had told him so also. He had different plans. He thought sheep-raising upon the Saragoza Hills pleased him best. He owned there quite a good stretch of land. And there was an old adobe house on top of the hill. He thought it was better to live in seclusion for the next year or so than being hooted and reviled in the bull-ring. Maria was willing to follow him anywhere.

And he told her: “When my feelings change, I will return to the ring.”

“Which I hope you will never do!” Maria exclaimed.

She had no desire to see her husband glorified by the multitude after he had been gored to death in the ring.

IV

It was a great affair, the wedding of Don Jose with Maria del Alcazar. All the retired and active matadors of Seville came to the wedding in their bespangled clothes, for they understood what the populace refused to understand. They knew what premonitions were and how they acted on a matador in the ring. It was easy to cheer and easier to hoot, but bulls carried death on the tips of their horns.

A week later the two newly married were in the Saragoza adobe. It was not much better than the home in which their people had lived in the Triana. Still, Maria thought it was very beautiful. The bare mud walls she decorated with her eyes, which reflected all the beauties they had absorbed. And through them she projected her dreams, the delicate traceries and colorings, and the mosaic and the stalactite of the ceilings. And she was happy. For there were no working-men tearing down and repairing and touching with brutal hands what was about her. And from the top of the hill the olive groves and vineyards and the tall cypress trees that stretched below her were even more beautiful than the gardens in which she had roamed. And the serpentining, snaking river below, shimmering with the blue of the sky in the sunlight, was like the limpid water pools and bathing places of the Alcazar. Indeed, it was more the Alcazar than anything else. And it was hers. No working-men, no visitors, disturbed her.

Jose was busy building sheds for the sheep. And evenings his powerful arms were delicately wrapped about her. He appreciated her love and was flattered that she could be so happy in such poor surroundings. And he wondered what there was in him that she, the most beautiful woman in the world, should be able to stay with him in so desolate a place, away from all the things she had been accustomed to. In his eyes she was not a poor girl, the daughter of a keeper, that he had married. She was Maria del Alcazar, the one raised in surroundings so beautiful there was none the like of them in the world. Evenings, when the work was done, the two lovers would face each other, sitting outside their hut.

And one evening Don Jose said:

“There never happened a better thing to me than to have been gored by a bull.”

To which Maria quietly answered, seizing the hands of the man near her:

“And yet I hate bulls.”

But the courage did not return to Don Jose. Month succeeded month. And after the long winter was over, the first winter they had passed together, he was approached to appear again in the ring. Refusing, he wondered whether the courage would ever return to him again. He hung his head when the man tried to convince him by saying:

“You, who have received the applause of thousands and thousands while so young, should now live in the company of sheep and mules on the top of a hill! You who have received thousands of _pesetas_ for one hour of work, and been glorified by the whole of Spain, should now work so hard with the hope of getting a pittance at the end of the year! And your wife, Don Jose. Don’t forget your wife.”

But Don Jose shook his head and answered:

“Not this year.”

And when the men who had come to engage him left his house, they said to each other: “Many a good matador has become better and more courageous to win the woman he loved, only to become a coward for fear of losing her.”

Maria was happy that he refused. She did not understand why every time these men returned Jose should be so sullen and dark. Oh, were they not happy there on top of the mountain? And were they not living in the most beautiful palace that man had ever built? If it was true the Alcazar had never been built, but had been conjured up by the wand of some great magician, an even greater magician had conjured the greater Alcazar she was living in now. She had always, she realized now, missed something when she had been living in the Alcazar of Seville. Now she knew what she had missed. There were only walls and ceilings. Even the phantoms she conjured were cold despite all the warm colors about them. But there on the Saragoza Hills she had realized and filled out her dream. Draperies, heavy silks came down, called by the magic of her love, and covered everything, and uncovered greater beauties on softer backgrounds.

But Jose walked about sullenly, muttering to himself:

“It was a bad day for me when that bull gored me. It was a bad day for me when that bull gored me.” He missed the applause, the cheering, the excitement. And yet he did not have the courage.

And one day, when he had returned from the village at the foot of the hill, instead of recalling as he had frequently done the beautiful days during which Maria had sat at his bedside, he spoke angrily to her, and she could recognize the smell of _aguardiente_, burning water, on his breath.

“It was because of you that I was gored by the bull! I was thinking of you instead of the beast before me! You are the cause of my misfortune!”

And suddenly, when she reëntered the hut, the walls appeared as they really were, dirty mud walls. The ceilings which she had enlarged and domed with her eyes, and beamed and wrought with mosaics, appeared to her as they really were, cracked, low, and ugly. The rickety bed which stood in the corner, which had been to her like the richest couch of the most beautiful sultana, was nothing but a squalid heap of rusty iron, rags, and mattresses. The low-burning lamp had lost its mystic quality. It was but an ill-smelling kerosene lamp. All the riches of the adobe were gone. It had been conjured by the magic wand of a sorcerer, and been dispelled by a few ugly words. And so she lay down and wept.

When she awoke in the morning, the squalor of her surroundings was even more appalling. The sheep, which had been so beautiful, were now ugly. And the mountain and the river and the olive groves and the vineyards were nothing but ugly, brown, crooked cripples scorching in the hot sun. It was worse than the Triana mud huts in which she had lived. And Jose himself, Jose himself, what a different man he was! An unwashed, unkempt, rag-clothed stranger, with a hard voice and an evil odor.

A few months later, another group of men came to induce Don Jose to appear again in the bull-ring. He assured them he would do so the following spring.

“But where is Doña Maria, his wife, of whose beauty we have heard so much? The woman we have seen could not have been she, for she looked so much older and anything but beautiful.” The men looked at one another outside.

Indeed, where was she?

For none of them realized that a single year could have changed a woman so much. She wandered about mute, listless. Her eyes were lusterless and her gaze vacant.

And he did get back his courage the following spring. And he again became the favorite of the people. There were pictures of him hanging in every store and every home from one end of Spain to the other. He was piling up great wealth and had furnished a beautiful apartment, more beautiful than he had ever expected to live in, with a profusion of silks and carpets and silver vases and copper urns. He thought Maria had been made unhappy by the poverty of her surroundings, the fool.

It was all in vain. He could not make it as beautiful as the Alcazar. It was squalid, poor, ugly, decrepit tinsel compared with the gold of the palace, and more so when compared with the gold of her dreams, which he had destroyed once forever.