With a certain respect he combed the long lock that crowned the occiput of the maestro, braided it and, postponing the completion of the operation, fixed it on the top of his head with two hairpins, leaving its final arrangement until later. Now he must occupy himself with the feet, and he stripped the athlete of his socks, leaving him dressed only in an undershirt and drawers of silk mesh.
Gallardo's strong muscles were outlined beneath this clothing in vigorous protuberances. A hollow in one thigh showed a deep scar where the flesh had disappeared on account of a horn-stab. Signs of old wounds were marked by white spots on the brown skin of his arms. His breast, dark and free from hair, was crossed by two irregular purplish lines, with a round depression, as if it had served as a mould for a coin. But his gladiatorial person exhaled an odor of clean brave flesh, mingled with strong but effeminate perfumes.
Garabato, with an armful of cotton and white bandages, knelt at the swordsman's feet.
"Like the ancient gladiators," said Dr. Ruiz, interrupting his conversation with the man from Bilbao; "thou hast become a Roman, Juan."
"Age, doctor," answered Gallardo with a certain melancholy. "We all have to grow old. When I used to fight bulls and hunger too, I didn't need this—and I had feet of iron in doing the cape-work."
Garabato introduced little tufts of cotton between his master's toes; then he covered the soles and upper part with a layer of this soft material and, putting on the bandages, began to bind them in tight spirals, as the ancient mummies are enwrapped. To fasten this arrangement he took the threaded needles he wore on one sleeve and carefully sewed the ends of the bandages.
Gallardo stamped on the floor with his compressed feet, which seemed firmer inside their soft swathing. Thus encased they felt strong and agile. The servant then drew on long stockings which reached half way up his leg; they were thick and flexible like leggings—the only defence of the legs under the silk of the fighting dress.
"Be careful about wrinkles. Look out, Garabato, I don't like to wear pockets!"
And he stood up to look at himself in the two panels of the mirror, stooping to pass his hands over his legs and smooth out the wrinkles. Over the white stockings Garabato drew on others of rose-colored silk. Then Gallardo thrust his feet into his low shoes, choosing them from among several pairs that Garabato had put on a trunk, all with white soles and perfectly new.
Now the real task of dressing began. The servant handed him his fighting trousers held by the legs,—tobacco-colored silk with heavy embroideries of gold on their seams. Gallardo put them on and the thick cords with gold tassels that closed the knees, congesting the leg with artificial fulness, hung to his feet.
Gallardo told his servant to tighten them as much as he could, at the same time swelling up the muscles of his legs. This operation was one of the most important. A bull-fighter must wear the machos well tightened. And Garabato, with deft speed, converted the dangling cords into little bows.
The master put on the fine batiste shirt which the servant offered him, with gatherings on the bosom, soft and transparent as a feminine garment. Garabato after buttoning it tied the knot of the long cravat that fell in a red line, dividing the bosom until it was lost in the waistband of the trousers.
The most complicated part of the dressing still remained, the faja, a band of silk nearly five yards long, that seemed to fill the whole apartment, Garabato managing it with the skill of long practice.
The swordsman walked to the other extreme of the room where his friends were and put one of the ends around his waist.
"Come, be very careful!" he said to his servant. "Make the most of thy little skill."
Slowly turning on his heels he drew near his servant who held one end of the belt, thus winding it around his body in regular curves, giving greater elegance to his waist. Garabato, with rapid movements of his hands, changed the folds of the band of silk. With some turns the belt rolled double, with others wide open, and it all adjusted itself to the bull-fighter's form, smooth as if it were a single piece, without wrinkles or puffs. Gallardo, scrupulous and fastidious in the arrangement of his person, stopped his progress in the course of the rotatory journey to go back two or three times and improve upon the work.
"It isn't good," he said with ill-humor. "Damn it all! Be careful Garabato."
After many halts Gallardo reached the end with the entire piece of silk wound around his waist. The skilful servant had sewed and put pins and safety pins all over his master's body, converting his clothes into one single piece. To get out of them the bull-fighter would have to resort to scissors and to others' hands. He could not divest himself of a single garment until his return to the hotel, unless the bull should accomplish it for him in the open plaza and they should finish undressing him in the hospital.
Gallardo seated himself again and Garabato went about the business of arranging the queue, taking out the hairpins and adding the moña, the black rosette with streamers which recalled the ancient head-dress of early bull-fighting times.
The master, as if he wished to put off the moment of final encasement in the costume, stretched himself, asked Garabato for the cigar that he had left on the little night-table, and demanded the time, thinking that all the clocks were fast.
"It's early yet. The boys haven't come. I don't like to go to the plaza early. It makes a fellow tired to be there waiting!"
A servant of the hotel announced that the carriage with the cuadrilla had arrived.
It was time to go. There was no excuse for delaying the moment of setting forth. He put over his belt the gold-embroidered vest and outside of this the jacket, a shining garment with enormous embossments, heavy as armor and resplendent with light as a glowing coal. The silk, color of tobacco, was only visible on the under side of the arms and in two triangles on the back. Almost the entire garment disappeared under the heavy layer of trimmings and gold-embroidered designs forming flowers with colored stones in their corollas. The shoulder pieces were heavy masses of gold embroidery from which fell a fringe of the same metal. The garment was edged with a close fringe that moved at every step. From the golden opening of the pockets the points of two handkerchiefs peeped forth, red like the cravat and the tie.
The cap!
Garabato took out of an oval box with great care the fighting cap, black and shining, with two pendent tassels, like ears of passementerie. Gallardo put it on, taking care that the coleta should remain unhidden, hanging symmetrically down his back.
The cape!
Garabato caught up the cape from off a chair, the capa de gala, a princely mantle of silk of the same shade as the dress and equally burdened with gold embroidery. Gallardo hung it over one shoulder and looked at himself in the glass, satisfied with his preparations. It was not bad.
"To the plaza!"
His two friends took their farewells hastily and called a cab to follow him. Garabato put under one arm a great bundle of red cloths, from the ends of which peeped the hilts and guards of many swords.
CHAPTER II
THE MATADOR AND THE LADY
As Gallardo descended to the vestibule of the hotel he saw the street filled with a dense and noisy crowd as though some great event had taken place. The buzzing of the multitude outside the door reached his ears. The proprietor and all his family appeared with extended hands as if they would bid him farewell for a long journey.
"Good luck! May all go well with you!"
The servants, forgetting distance at the impulse of enthusiasm and emotion, also held their right hands out to him.
"Good luck, Don Juan!"
And