Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, August 1847

The young girl turned quickly round, and looked at him with an air of uneasy surprise.

"They are lemon and mint," said he, as if to decide her.

Militona, suddenly making up her mind, plunged her little fingers into the box, and took a pinch of the lozenges.

"Luckily Juancho has his back turned," muttered a majo who stood just by, "or there would be blood on his knife to-night."

"Will this lady take some?" continued Andrés in a tone of exquisite politeness, holding out the box to the horrible old woman, who was so disconcerted by this piece of audacity that in her confusion she took every one of the sugar-plums. Nevertheless, whilst emptying the box into the palm of her hand, black as that of a mummy, she cast a furtive and frightened glance at the circus, and heaved an enormous sigh.

At that moment the orchestra sounded the death: it was Juancho's turn to kill. He approached the municipal box, made the usual salutation and demand, and threw his montero into the air in right cavalier style. The audience, usually so tumultuous, became profoundly silent. The bull Juancho had to kill was of formidable breed; seven horses, stretched lifeless upon the sand, their bowels protruding from hideous wounds, told of his fury and vigour. The two picadores had left the arena, sorely bruised and crippled by numerous falls, and the supernumerary waited in the corridor, foot in stirrup and lance in fist, ready to replace them. The chulos prudently kept themselves in the vicinity of the palisade, one foot on the wooden ledge which aids them to leap it in case of danger; and the victorious bull ranged the circus—stained here and there by large puddles of blood, which the attendants dared not approach to scatter with sawdust—striking the doors with his horns, and tossing the dead horses into the air. Juancho approached the monstrous beast with that firm and deliberate step before which lions themselves retreat. The bull, astonished at sight of a fresh adversary, paused, uttered a deep roar, shook the slaver from his muzzle, scratched the earth with his hoof, lowered his head two or three times, and made a few paces backwards. Juancho was magnificent to behold: his countenance expressed dauntless resolution; his fixed and steadfast eyes, whose pupils, surrounded by white, resembled stars of jet, darted invisible rays which pierced the bull like steel darts; unconsciously, he subjected the brute to that magnetism by which Van Amburgh sends his trembling tigers crouching to the extremity of their den. Each forward step made by the man was responded to by a backward one of the ferocious beast. At this triumph of moral over brute force, the audience, seized with enthusiasm, burst into frantic applause, shouting and stamping, yelling out vivas, and ringing the species of bells which amateurs take with them to the bull-fights. Walls and ceilings cracked beneath this storm of admiration, the paint crumbled off and flew about in whirlwinds of white dust. The torero, thus applauded, raised his head, with flashing eyes and joyful heart, to the place where Militona sat, as if to lay at her feet the admiration of a whole city. The moment was badly chosen. Militona had dropped her fan, and Don Andrés, who had snatched it up with all the precipitation of a person desirous to strengthen with an additional thread the slender chain of a new acquaintance, returned it to her with a happy smile and gallant gesture. The young girl could not do less than acknowledge the polite attention by a gracious smile and inclination of her head. Smile and bow were detected by Juancho; his lips grew pale, his complexion green, the orbits of his eyes became blood-shot, his hand contracted on his sword-hilt, and the point of the weapon, which he held low, was thrust, by a convulsive movement, thrice into the sand. The bull, no longer under the spell of the fascinating glance, approached his adversary, who neglected to put himself on guard. The interval between man and beast was terribly small.

"Master Juancho is not easily frightened," observed some of the more callous spectators.

"Juancho, have a care!" cried others, more humane; "Juancho de mi vida, Juancho of my heart, Juancho of my soul, the bull is upon you!"

As to Militona, whether it was that the habit of bull-fights had blunted her sensibility, or that she had entire confidence in the consummate skill of Juancho, or because she took little interest in the man over whom she exercised such influence, her face continued as calm as if nothing unusual was occurring; only a slight flush appeared in the centre of her cheek, and the lace of her mantilla rose and fell upon her bosom with increased rapidity.

The cries of the spectators roused Juancho from his stupor: he drew hastily back, and waved the scarlet folds of the muleta before the eyes of the bull. The instinct of self-preservation, the pride of the gladiator, struggled in his breast with the desire to watch Militona; a moment's neglect, a glance on one side, might cost him his life. It was an infernal predicament for a jealous man. To behold, beside the woman he loved, a gay, handsome, and attentive rival, while he, in the middle of a circus, the eyes of twelve thousand spectators riveted upon him, had, within a few inches of his breast, the sharp horns of a ferocious beast which, under pain of dishonour, he could only kill in a certain manner and by a wound in a certain place.

The torero, once more master of the jurisdiction, as it is said in tauromachian slang, settled himself firmly on his heels, and manœuvred with the muleta to make the bull lower his head.

"What could he say to her," thought Jauncho, "that young fellow on whom she smiled so sweetly?" Swayed by the reflection, he again forgot his formidable antagonist, and involuntarily raised his eyes. The bull, profiting by the momentary inattention, rushed upon the man; the latter, taken unawares, leaped backwards, and, by a mechanical movement, made a thrust with his sword. Several inches of the blade entered, but in the wrong place. The weapon met the bone; a furious movement of the bull made it rebound from the wound amidst a spout of blood, and fall to the ground some paces off. Juancho was disarmed, and the bull more dangerous than ever, for the misdirected thrust had served but to exasperate him. The chulos ran to the rescue, waving their pink and blue cloaks. Militona grew pale; the old woman uttered lamentable ejaculations, and sighed like a stranded whale. The public, beholding Juancho's inconceivable awkwardness, commenced one of those tremendous uproars in which the Spanish people excel: a perfect hurricane of insulting epithets, of vociferations and maledictions. "Away with the dog!" was shouted on all sides; "Down with the thief, the assassin! To the galleys with him! To Ceuta! The clumsy butcher, to spoil such a noble beast!" And so on, through the entire vocabulary of abuse which the Spanish tongue so abundantly supplies. Juancho stood erect under the storm of insult, biting his lips, and tearing with his right hand the lace frills of his shirt. His sleeve, ripped open by the bull's horn, disclosed his arm a long violet scar. For an he tottered, and seemed about to fall, suffocated by the violence of his emotions; but he promptly recovered himself, ran to his sword, picked it up, straightened the bent blade with his foot, and placed himself with his back towards the place where Militona sat. At a sign he made, the chulos led the bull towards him by tantalising it with their cloaks; and this time he dealt the animal a downward thrust, in strict conformity with the laws of the sport—such a one as the great Montés of Chiclana himself would not have disowned. The sword was planted between the shoulders, and its cross-hilt, rising between the horns of the bull, reminded of those Gothic engravings where St Hubert is seen kneeling before a stag which bears a crucifix in its antlers.

The bull fell heavily on its knees before Juancho, as if doing homage to his superiority, and after a short convulsion rolled over, its four feet in the air.

"Juancho has taken a brilliant revenge! What a splendid thrust! He is superior to Arjona and the Chiclanero; do you not think so, Señorita?" cried Andrés enthusiastically to his neighbour.

"For God's sake, sir, not another word!" replied Militona very quickly, without turning her head and scarcely moving her lips. The words were spoken in a tone at once so imperative and so imploring, that Andrés immediately saw it was not the artifice of a young girl begging to be let alone, and hoping to be disobeyed. Neither could modesty dictate the injunction. Nothing he had said called for such rigour, and manolas, the grisettes of Madrid, are not usually—be it said without calumny—of such extreme susceptibility. Real terror, apprehension of a danger unknown to Andrés, was indicated by the hasty sentence.

"Can she be a princess in disguise?" said Andrés to himself, considerably puzzled how to act. "If I hold my tongue, I shall look like a fool, or, at any rate, like a very middling sort of Don Juan: if I persist, I shall perhaps cause the poor girl some disagreeable scene. Can she be afraid of the duenna? Hardly. When that amiable old sorceress devoured my comfits, she became in some sort an accomplice. It cannot be she whom my infanta dreads. Is there a father, brother, husband, or jealous lover in the neighbourhood?" But on looking around, Andrés could discover no one who seemed to pay the slightest attention to the proceedings of the beautiful manola.

From the moment of the bull's death till the end of the fight, Juancho did not once look at Militona. He despatched with unparalleled dexterity two other bulls that fell to his share, and was applauded as vehemently as he had previously been hissed. Andrés, either not deeming it prudent, or not finding a good pretext to renew the conversation, didn't speak another word to Militona, and even left the circus a few minutes before the conclusion of the performances. Whilst stepping across the benches, he whispered something to a boy of quick and intelligent physiognomy, and then immediately disappeared.

The boy, when the audience rose to depart, mingled in the crowd, and, without any apparent design, attached himself to the steps of Militona and the duenna. He saw them get into their cabriolet, and when the vehicle rolled away on its great scarlet wheels, he hung on behind, as if giving way to a childish impulse, and was whirled through a cloud of dust, singing at the top of his voice the popular ditty of the Bulls of Puerto.

"Well done!" exclaimed Andrés, who, from an alley of the Prado, which he had already reached, saw cab and boy rattle past: "in an hour I shall know the address of the charming manola."

Andrés had reckoned without the chapter of accidents. In the Calle de los Desamparados, a cut across the face from the whip of the surly calesero, forced the ragged Mercury to let go his hold. Before he could pick himself up, and rub the dust and tears from his eyes, the vehicle was at the farther end of the street, and although Perico, impressed with the importance of his mission, followed it at the top of his speed, he lost sight of it in the labyrinth of lanes adjacent to the Plaza de Lavapies—literally, Washfeet Square—a low quarter of Madrid. The most he could ascertain was, that the calesin had deposited its burthen in one of four streets, but in which of them it was impossible to say. With the bait of a dollar before his eyes, however, the urchin was not to be discouraged; and late that night, as Don Andrés was returning from a wearisome tertulia, whither he had been compelled to accompany Doña Feliciana de los Rios, he felt a pull at the skirt of his coat. It was Perico.

"Caballero," said the child, "she lives in the Calle del Povar, the third house on the right. I saw her at her window, taking in the water jar."

It is difficult to describe the style of architecture of the house inhabited by Militona, unless we designate it as the order composite. Its front was characterised by a total absence of symmetry; the walls, sadly out of the perpendicular, seemed about to fall, and would doubtless have done so but for the support of sundry iron curves and crosses, which held the bricks together, and of two adjacent houses of more solid construction. From the lower part of the ricketty fabric the plaster had peeled off in large scales, exposing the foundation wall; whilst the upper stories, better preserved, exhibited traces of old pink paint, as if the poor house blushed for shame of its miserable condition. Near the roof of broken and disorderly tiles, which marked out a brown festoon against the bright blue sky, was a little window, surrounded by a recent coat of white plaster. On the right of this casement hung a cage, containing a quail: on the left another cage, of minute dimensions, decorated with red and yellow beads, served as palace to a cricket. A jar of porous earth, suspended by the ears to a string, and covered with a pearly moisture, held water cooling in the evening breeze, and from time to time allowed a few drops to fall upon two pots of sweet basil that stood beneath it. The window was that of Militona's apartment.

If the reader will venture to ascend with us this dark and broken staircase, we will follow Militona as she trips lightly up it on her return from the bull-fight; whilst old Aldonsa tolls behind, calling upon the saints for succour, and clinging to the greasy rope that does duty as a banister. On reaching the topmost landing-place, the pretty manola raised a fragment of matting that hung before one of those many-panelled doors common in Madrid, took her key and let herself in. The interior of the room was humble enough. Whitewash replaced paper; a scratched mirror—which reflected very imperfectly the charming countenance of its owner—a plaster cast of St Antony, flanked by two blue glass vases containing artificial flowers, a deal table, two chairs, and a little bed covered with a muslin quilt, composed the entire furniture. We must not forget an image of Our Lady, rudely painted and gilt on glass, engravings of the fight of the second of May, of the funeral of Daoiz and Velarde, and of a picador on horseback; a tambourine, a guitar, and a branch of palm, brought from church on the previous Palm Sunday. Such was Militona's room; and although it contained but the barest necessaries of life, it had not the chill and dreary look of misery. A cheerful gleam illuminated it; the red brick floor was gay and pleasant to the eye; there was no shade on the white walls, or cobweb on the raftered roof—all was fresh, and bright, and cheerful in the poor garret. In England it would have been perfect destitution, in Spain it was almost comfort, and more than was necessary for happiness.

The old woman was at last at the top of the stairs; she entered the room and let herself fall upon one of the two chairs, which cracked under her weight. "The water jar, Militona, for mercy's sake! I am half suffocated with the heat and dust; and those accursed lozenges have put my throat in a flame."

"You should not have eaten so many, tia," said the young girl, smiling, and placing the jar to the old lady's lips. Aldonsa drank eagerly, passed the back of her hand over her mouth, and fanned herself in silence.

"Talking of lozenges," said she after a pause, "how furiously Juancho looked at us! I am sure he missed the bull because that young spark spoke to you. Juancho is jealous as a tiger, and if he has fallen in with yonder pretty gentleman, he will have made him repent his gallantry. I would not give much for the young man's skin; it will have some famous holes in it. Do you remember the slash he gave Luca, for offering you a nosegay at the festival of San Isidro?"

"I hope Juancho will commit no violence," exclaimed the young girl—"What frightful slavery to be thus persecuted by his ferocious love!"

"It is your fault," retorted Aldonsa. "Why are you so pretty?"

A sharp rap at the door, sounding as if given by an iron finger, interrupted the conversation. The old woman got up and looked through the little grating, inserted, according to Spanish custom, in the centre of the door. Through the bars appeared the countenance of Juancho, pale beneath the bronzed tint with which the sun of the arena had overlaid it. Aldonsa opened the door and the torero entered. His features betrayed the violent emotions that had agitated him in the bull-ring. To the shame of having been hissed was superadded rage at not having quitted the circus soon enough to overtake the young man who had been so attentive to Militona. Where could he now find him? Doubtless he had followed the manola and spoken to her again. And at the thought, Juancho's hand mechanically sank to his girdle to seek his knife.

The torero sat down upon the second chair. Militona stood at the window, pulling a flower to pieces; the old woman fanned herself more rapidly than ever: an awkward silence reigned in the apartment. Aldonsa was the first to break it.

"Does your arm hurt you, Juancho?"

"No," replied the bull-fighter, fixing his deep gaze upon Militona.

"You should bandage it, and apply salt and water," said the old woman, determined not to let the conversation drop.

Juancho made no reply, but addressed himself to Militona.

"Who was the young man who sat beside you at the bull-fight?"

"I do not know him. I never saw him before."

"But you would like to know him?"

"The supposition is polite. Well, and what if I should?"

"I would kill him, the dainty gentleman in polished boots and white gloves."

"You talk like a madman, Juancho. What right have I given you to be jealous of me? You love me, you say—is that my fault? Am I obliged to adore you, because you have taken it into your head to find me pretty?"

"True enough," interposed the old woman, "she is not obliged. Nevertheless, you would make a handsome couple. Prettier hand never rested on more vigorous arm; and if you danced a cachuca together at the garden of the Delicias, people would stand on the chairs to look at you."

"Have I played the coquet with you, Juancho? Have I sought, by word, or look, or smile, to engage your affections?"

"No," replied the torero in a gloomy voice.

"I never promised you any thing, or gave you any hope: I always bade you forget me. Why torment and offend me by your unjustifiable violence? You crippled poor Luca, an honest fellow, who amused me and made me laugh, and you wounded your friend Ginés almost to death, because he happened to touch my hand. Do you think such conduct advances you in my good opinion? And to-day at the circus you behaved absurdly; whilst watching me, you let the bull come upon you, and gave a miserable thrust."

"But I love you, Militona!" exclaimed the bull-fighter passionately. "I love you with all my heart and soul; I see but you in the world, and a bull's horn entering my breast would not make me turn my head when you smile upon another man. True, my manners are not gentle, for I have passed my life in contests with savage beasts, in slaying and exposing myself to be slain. I cannot be soft and simpering like those delicate young gentlemen who pass their time in reading the papers and having their hair curled! But if you will not be mine," resumed Juancho after a pause, striking the table violently with his fist, "at any rate no one else shall call you his." And with these words he got up and left the room. "I will find him!" he muttered, as he strode down the stairs, "and cool his courtship with three inches of steel."

All that night Juancho kept watch and ward in front of Militona's dwelling, in hopes of falling in with her new admirer. Militona learned this from old Aldonsa, who lived in the house, and she felt seriously alarmed lest the handsome cavalier who had been so courteous to her at the circus, and whom she could not remember without a certain interest, should come to harm at the hands of the terrible torero who thus tyrannised over her inclinations and scared away all aspirants to her favour. Juancho, meanwhile, steady in his resolve to exterminate his rival, had betaken himself, on coming off guard in the Calle del Povar, to a tailor's in the Calle Mayor, and there had exchanged his usual majo's dress for a suit of black and a round hat. Thus metamorphosed into a sober citizen, he passed the day and evening in the Prado, the most elegant coffee-houses, the theatres—in every place, in short, where he thought it likely he should meet the object of his anger. But nowhere could he find him, and that for the best of reasons. At the very hour that the torero purchased the disguise intended to facilitate his revenge, Don Andrés, in the back shop of a clothes-dealer on the Rastro—the great Madrid market for second-hand articles of every description—donned the complete costume of a manolo, trusting it would aid him in his designs upon Militona. Equipped in a round jacket of snuff-coloured cloth, abundantly decorated with small buttons, in loose pantaloons, a silk sash, a dark cloak and velvet-trimmed hat, which garments, although not quite new, were not wanting in a certain elegance, and sat trimly upon his well-made person, Andrés hurried to the Calle del Povar. He at once recognised the window described to him by Perico; a curtain was drawn before it on the inner side, and nothing indicated that the room had an occupant.

"Doubtless she is gone out," thought Andrés, "and will return only when her day's work is finished. She must be a needle-woman, cigar-maker, embroideress, or something of that kind," and he walked on.

Militona had not gone out. She was cutting out a dress upon her little table. The occupation required no great mystery, but nevertheless her door was bolted, for fear probably of some sudden invasion on the part of Juancho, rendered doubly dangerous by the absence of Tia Aldonsa. As she worked, Militona's thoughts travelled faster than her needle. They ran upon the young man who had gazed at her the previous evening, at the circus, with so tender and ardent a gaze, and who had spoken a few words to her in a voice that still sounded pleasantly in her ear.

It was night, and Juancho, straitened and uncomfortable in his modern costume, and wearied with fruitless researches, paced the alleys of the Prado with hasty steps, looking every man in the face, but without discovering his rival. At the same hour, Andrés, seated in an orchateria de chufas (orgeat-shop) nearly opposite Militona's house, quietly consumed a glass of iced lemonade. He had placed himself on picket there, with Perico for his vedette. Juancho would have passed him by without recognising him, or thinking of seeking his enemy under the round jacket and felt hat of a manolo, but Militona, concealed in the corner of her window, had not been deceived for an instant by the young man's disguise. Love has sharper eyes than hatred. Devoured by anxiety, the manola asked herself what could be the projects of the persevering cavalier, and dreaded the terrible scene that must ensue should Juancho discover him. Andrés, his elbows upon the table, watched every one who went in or out of the house; but night came and Militona had not appeared. He began to doubt the correctness of his emissary's information, when a light in the young girl's window showed that the room was inhabited. Hastily writing a few words in pencil on a scrap of paper, he called Perico, who lingered in the neighbourhood, and bade him take the billet to the pretty manola. Perico slipped into the house, fumbled his way up stairs, and discovered Militona's door by the light shining through the cracks. Two discreet taps; the wicket was half opened, and the note taken in.

"It is to be hoped she can read," thought Andrés, as he paid for his lemonade, left the shop, and walked slowly up and down the street. This was what he had written:—

"One who cannot forget you, and who would grieve to do so, ardently desires to see you again; but after your last words at the circus, and ignorant of your position, he fears to place you in peril by seeking an interview. Danger to himself would be no obstacle. Extinguish your lamp, and throw your answer from the window."

In a few minutes the lamp disappeared, the window opened, and Militona took in her water-jar. In so doing she upset one of the pots of sweet basil, which fell into the street and was broken to pieces. Amidst the brown earth scattered upon the pavement, something white was visible. It was Militona's answer. Andrés called a sereno, or watchman, who just then passed, with his lantern at the end of his halbert, and begging him to lower the light, read the following words, written in a tremulous hand, and in large irregular letters:—