Note 25 — Chapter X · THE WILL OF GOD

The elements which go to the making of a great corrida in Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Zaragoza, San Sebastián, are intricate and varied. If any of them fails, the consummation fails. The rearing of perfect bulls is a science in Spain. Only a few preëminent ranches—ganaderías de toros bravos—are equipped to supply them. They are either in the province of Salamanca or in Andalusia. The toreros study the bulls in the field, coöperating in their upbring. Experts breed and train them, and prepare them for their supreme moment in the sun of the arena. And before the conflict, they are examined by veterinary surgeons. If they are one jot less than perfect, they may not enter the ring of a true corrida. They are then consigned to the corridas de novilleros: the innumerable encounters of the apprentice fighters—who must go through several seasons and win the applause of the most exacting critics ere they are admitted to the rank of espada.

Yet despite this care, imperfect bulls (bulls who refuse to fight, who fight erratically, who flinch at crucial moments) do enter the best corrida and blot out the artistry of the most expert matador. Indeed, the skill of the torero lies in great measure in his ability to control the bull. The genuine artist must possess hypnotic power. He must compel him in the instant of confrontation to forget the multitude, the flashing capas, the banderillas that bite his flesh: to concentrate upon his own frail grace all the bull’s hate and all the bull’s vigor. He must compel a brute to be the partner of an exquisite dancer.

He must control his own body as perfectly as any artist on a stage. Utter purity of form, of pace, of measure must be preserved within this threat of death. There is no virtuosity like this in all the world. Beyond is the crowd, not at all loth to seeing him undone: before him, his colleague, is a maddened bull whose horns are more terrible than swords. He must control the crowd; he must model the lunges of the brute into the design of an essential dance. And all this he must do in coolness.

The torero who can achieve this, not one time in a career but with reasonable frequency, and before the most savagely critical—and the most savage—audience in the world, comes not often in a decade’s passing. Most toreros are at the mercy of the bull. If he behaves they acquit themselves with credit. If he baulks, they must trust to luck—to the saving capas of the banderilleros—even to their heels. Hisses are more frequent in the plaza than cheers.

All artists must labor against the inclement will of their materials. The temper of the bull, the action of the cuadro de banderilleros, the mood of the crowd present the common problem of technique. What distinguishes the art of the torero is the immediacy of death. If the dancer slips, he fails and that is all: if the acrobat misses, he lands in a net: if the actor forgets his line, he hears the prompter. If the torero makes a false step, he is dead.

And the corrida will go on without him! for he is never alone. But he is alone with his skill and with his nerve. The slightest trace of haste or sign of fear will spoil the pure line of his style. If for an instant he breaks from the perfection of his pose to save his life, he loses his art. And if in that moment he elects rather to hold to his art, he may not live to reap its glory.

In recent years, two toreros of genius have arisen in Spain. One, Joselito, died on the horns of the bull: and the corrida went on despite the mourning of the nation. Joselito shared with Belmonte the summit of his art. He was an Apollonian classicist. Chance and inspiration were reduced to a minimum. He had control over the brute: but it appeared to be less of hypnosis than of reason. He operated on the bull with so cool an accuracy that the infuriated beast was soothed into an obedient opposition to the torero. Joselito was exact, unostentatious. But when he had coupled with his enemy, his art became ornate. He moved facilely, he gave delicate steps. When he was killed in Valencia, Spain lost the most exquisite if not the profoundest of her tragic dancers.

Nature has aided Belmonte with its abstruse law of compensation for inferiorities. In this abnormally frail body live courage, rhythmic articulation, dionysian gesture. When Belmonte steps out to meet his bull the mind falls into heroic channels. For the head is brooding. And when, as once when I saw him, there is a white bandage across the brow with a touch of blood upon it, the effect is magic.

Belmonte at his worst is an ugly boy vaguely at odds with an unwieldy task. At his best, he is the propounder of rapture. He does not abstract the individuality of the bull like Joselito, and then perform his cold objective art. He measures the foe. He accepts him as he is. He plunges into the bull’s fury. And thence, he rises to his high victory. There is always a moment in Belmonte’s act when he is lost. The crowd gasps. Gone altogether beneath the fury of the brute, he emerges. His body sways in the prepossessive grace of one who has come through death. His art is perhaps greater than that of Joselito because its content is greater. Joselito excluded from his victory the reality of defeat. Psychologically, he crushed his foe first, and then worked on him at ease. Belmonte begins by submitting to the bull’s might. And then, from this submission of the man, from this faltering of the god, he creates a form sculpturally superb.