1936 On the Continent

newspapers, fans, shellfish of all kinds, pictures of the heroes of the day. Talk, laughter, the electric atmosphere of anticipation—they are about to see blood spilt, it does not much matter whose blood. Everybody is here, and everybody shares this mood of excited anticipation. If you stop near the passage way you will see respectable daddies and mummies with their children pass through, as well as municipal or political dignitaries and perhaps some of the ladies you saw at the cabaret the previous night. One must be less than human not to be carried away by the electric atmosphere, which increases in tension as the time of the show approaches.
Enter the Bull
    There is a long-drawn cry from the crowd, then silence. Suddenly a trumpet call rends the air, then again silence. The arena is cleared and from behind a door in the barriers comes a fantastic and splendid procession. First the three
matadores
in coloured satin and gold, followed by their
cuadrillas, capeadores, banderilleros
, with the
picadores
on horseback, and last of all the
chulos
, whose task it is to carry off the dead bull. The procession stops before the president and salute him.
    By the way, the president is the person who gives various signals, acting as a sort of conductor of the bull-fight. He may be a prominent politician or a municipal dignitary, and he is generally guarded by an army of policemen. I observed above that the Spanish do not man-handle the referee at bull-fights. That is because there is no referee. But they would man-handle a president who gave the signals wrongly but for the presence of the aforesaid arms of the law.
    The president flings a key into the arena, which the
alguacil
catches and delivers to the
torilero
. The latter runs to a great door and flings it open, while the rest of the men in the arena rapidly doff the more gorgeous parts of their splendid raiment.
    Dead silence. Very quietly a bull enters the arena, and looks about him stupidly. He is obviously bewildered by the brilliant light and the medley of colours. A thunderous roar goes up from the vast multitude. They are applauding the bull, but the bull does not understand their applause.
    After this the fight may proceed in various different ways. Usually, however, the bull charges the
picadores
who, as you will remember, are on horseback. They carry spears with which to repulse the bull, but their real skill lies in swinging the horse aside. Sometimes it happens that they fail, and then the horse—always frightened to death from the first—is gored. If you have never heard a wounded horse scream, and particularly if your nerves are not made of steel, I hope you will never hear it. The wounded horse—it depends on the nature of the wound—plunges, then falls on its knees and rolls over. In that case the
chulos
rush up, help the
picador
to his feet, then proceed to beat and kick the poor horse in an effort to make it rise. If they do not succeed, they despatch the horse and later they carry it off the arena. But the
picador
ought to have drawn blood from the bull, and having missed he is hooted by the crowd. If the horse is not very severely wounded, even then you hear that terrible animal shriek.
The Matador
    The object of this first round, during which one or other of the
picadors
is bound to register a hit with his spear, is to excite the bull.
    The second round is fought by the
banderilleros
, after the
picadores
with their mounts have left the arena. The
banderilleros
are armed with darts about 3 feet long, and it is their task to land three pairs of these in the bull’s neck in order to make him angrier still. The
banderillero
stops a few paces from the bull, stamps his foot and jeers at him; when the bull charges he steps aside and plants his darts.
    When either a
picador
or a
banderillero
is in danger the
matador
will try to distract the bull’s attention by waving his red cloth.
    But it is in the third round that the
matador
plays his star part, and there is more skill and less cruelty displayed in this round than in the preceding two.
    The
matador
steps in front of the president, bows and declaims a traditional formula, swearing to kill the bull even at the cost of his own life. The speech is invariably applauded by the spectators who are now in a state of wild excitement that—well, it is not good to see. The women, if anything, are worse than the men, and their sadistic screams are a torment to hear. Some women appear to hide their faces