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THESBULLFIGHT 261
played the bull was perfectly willing, and the little
espada got out his father’s dagger, provoked the bull
to make an onslaught and killed him on the spot.
Further games of this kind were prohibited by the
police, but the boys still play it, for nothing is so im-
potent in Andalusia as a police prohibition. Even men
play at bullfighting in the meadows on Sundays, and
whenever an Andalusian traveling on a railway express
sees an ox or a cow grazing, though the animal may be
far from the window of the car, he will hiss and wave
his red handkerchief at it.
All roads lead to the official pawnshop, once the
day has been set for the bullfight. Everywhere there
is calculation and general stock-taking. People stint
themselves and beg until they have the price of a
ticket. No one ever thinks of elections, of the insur-
rection in northern Spain, where the gendarmes have
been shooting down defenseless women and children—
all this has vanished from their minds.
“When do the bulls arrive?” That is the question!
And on the day when the train pulls in with the six
horned champions from the breeding ranches near
Seville, the populace gather at the station to receive
and accompany them on their last humiliating journey
to the arena, where they are immured in pitch-black
stalls, with not a ray of light. The Granadinos stand
at attention along the gutters and fences. They lunge
at the steers with pointed sticks, spit at them and call
them vile names. The Spanish people oblige the na-
tional enemy to run the gauntlet in disgrace before they
destroy him.
Any fair-sized city has its arena that will hold from
ten to twenty thousand spectators. In Madrid, Seville,
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