Pagan Spain by Richard Wright

Author:Richard Wright [Wright, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Civilization, Europe, Spain & Portugal
ISBN: 9781578064274
Google: pQ3ldxV4c5EC
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Published: 2002-01-15T22:33:36+00:00

19

The dead bull’s mutilated carcass was being hauled away over the sand by a team of galloping horses while thousands stood, applauding, marveling, waving handkerchiefs. An avalanche of gifts—ladies’ handbags, men’s hats, flowers, cigars, and packages of cigarettes—rained down into the ring. Most of these were scooped up by Chamaco’s aides and tossed laughingly back to their owners, only the flowers being kept.

For the daring manner in which he had played the bull and in recognition of the determination of his kill, Chamaco received an honorable award of the tail and a hoof of the animal who had died so bravely. With the tail in one hand and a hoof in the other, he trotted slowly around the ring to acknowledge his homage, his adolescent face still solemn and his black eyes holding a soft, inscrutable expression. I had the feeling that the boy did not quite believe in the value of what he had done, or maybe did not thoroughly understand it, and harbored some rejection or doubt about the Niagara of applause that deafened his ears. Anyway, he seemed detached from, and consciously outside, it all.

Contrary to popular belief, which has it that bullfighters are something like ballet dancers, bullfighting does not demand much muscular exertion, physical fitness, or strength, and its practice does not develop the body as football, basketball, baseball, or cricket does. Indeed, some of the most memorable bullfights ever witnessed in modern times were executed by a man almost too ill and too weak to stand upon his feet. That man was Juan Belmonte, perhaps the most intelligent, courageous, and perceptive of all the men who ever entered a ring to kill a bull. Belmonte has characterized bullfighting as being “fundamentally a spiritual exercise and not merely a sport. Physical strength is not enough.”

But what is this mysterious “spiritual exercise” of which Belmonte speaks? Is there something hidden here? If there is something hidden, why are bullfights enacted out in the open, before thousands of spectators? The answer is not often recognized even when one is directly confronted with it. It is the conquering of fear, the making of a religion of the conquering of fear. Any man with enough courage to stand perfectly still in front of a bull will not be attacked or killed by that bull. It has been known for a man to sit in the bullring in a chair reading a newspaper in front of the bull-pen gate. The gate was thrown open; the bull thundered out, stopped, gazed at the seated man, and trotted away. But to remain immobile when a beast of more than a thousand pounds is hurtling toward you is usually beyond human capacity.

Back in my room I dutifully performed my daily stint of reading Carmen’s political catechism; I read lesson seventeen, for girls aged twelve to fourteen.

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