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The crowd starts to thin in the patio de caballos, the bullfighters line up, the three matadors abreast, their banderilleros and picadors behind them. The crowd goes from the ring, leaving it empty. You go to your seat and, if you are in a barrera, you buy a cushion from the vender below, sit on it, and with your knees pressing the wood look out across the ring to the doorway of the patio you have just left with the three matadors, the sun shining on the gold of their suits, standing in the doorway, the other bullfighters, on foot and mounted, making a mass behind them. Then you see the people around you looking up above them toward a box. It is the president coming in. He takes his seat and waves a handkerchief. If he is on time there is a burst of clapping; if he is late there is a storm of whistling and booing. A trumpet blows and from the patio two mounted men in the costume of the time of Philip II ride out across the sand.
They are the aguacils or mounted bailiffs and it is through them that all orders by the president who represents the constituted authority are transmitted. They gallop across the ring, doff their hats, bow low before the president and presumably having received his authorization gallop back to place. The music starts, and from the opening in the courtyard of the horses comes the procession of the bullfighters; the paseo or parade. The three, if there are six bulls, four, if there are eight, matadors walk abreast, their dress capes are furled and wrapped around their left arms, their right arms balance, they walk with a loose-hipped stride, their arms swinging, their chins up, their eyes on the president's box. In single file behind each matador comes his cuadrilla of banderilleros and his picadors in the order of their seniority. So they come across the sand in a column of three or four. As the matadors come in front of the president's box they bow low and remove their black hats or monteras — the bow is serious or perfunctory depending on their length of service or degree of cynicism. At the start of their careers all are as devoutly ritual as altar boys serving a high mass and some always remain so. Others are as cynical as night club proprietors. The devout ones are killed more frequently. The cynical ones are the best companions. But the best of all are the cynical ones when they are still devout; or after; when having been devout, then cynical, they become devout again by cynicism. Juan Belmonte is an example of the last stage.
After they have bowed to the president they replace their hats, settling them carefully, and go to the barrera. The procession breaks up as, all having saluted, the matadors remove their heavy gold brocaded and jewelled parade capes and send them or pass them to friends or admirers to spread along the front of the wall protecting the first rows of seats, or, sometimes, send them by the sword handler to some one, usually a singer, a dancer, a quack doctor, an aviator, a cinema actor, a politician or some one notorious in the news of the day who happens to be in a box. Very young matadors or very cynical ones send their capes to bullfight impresarios from other towns who may be in Madrid, or to the bullfight critics. The best ones send them to friends. It is better not to have one sent to you. It is a pleasant compliment if the bullfighter has a good day and does well, but if he does badly it is too much responsibility. To have an obvious allegiance to a bullfighter who through bad luck, a bad bull, some accident that makes him lose confidence, or bad nerves from coming back to the ring in poor physical shape after a goring, disgraces himself and finally makes the public so indignant that he may have to be protected by the police as he goes out of the ring, head down, under a bombardment of thrown leather cushions, makes one conspicuous when the sword handler comes dodging around the falling cushions to reclaim the cape. Or perhaps, anticipating the disaster, the sword handler has come for the cape before the last bull so that you can see the cape, so proudly received, drawn tightly around the disgraced shoulders, being carried sprinting across the ring, the cushions sailing, a few of the more violent spectators being charged by the police as they pursue your matador. The banderilleros give their capes to friends to display too, but as these capes are regal looking only at a distance, are often thin, well-sweated and lined with that same striped material that seems to form the lining for vests all over the world and as the banderilleros do not take the conferring of this favor seriously, the honor is only nominal. While the capes are being thrown and spread and the fighting capes taken from the barrera, the bull ring servants smooth the sand of the ring that has been disturbed by the procession of the mounted picadors, the harnessed mules for handling of dead bulls and horses and the hooves of the horses of the alguacils. Meantime the two matadors (it is inferred that this is a six-bull fight) who are not killing retire with their cuadrillas into the callejon or narrow passage way between the red fences of the barrera and the first seats. The matador whose bull is to come out selects one of the heavy percale fighting capes. These are usually rose-colored on the outside and yellow inside with a wide stiffened collar, and big and full enough so that if the matador should put it over his shoulders the bottom of it would fall to his knees or just below and he would be able to wrap himself completely in it. The matador who is to kill places himself behind one of the little flat plank shelters which are built out from the barrera, wide enough for two men to stand in and just narrow enough to dodge behind, the alguacils ride up to under the president's box to ask for the key to the red door of the toril where the bull is waiting. The president throws it and the alguacil tries to catch it in his plumed hat. If he does the crowd claps. If he misses it whistles. But it does not take any of this seriously. If it is not caught a bull ring servant picks it up and hands it to the alguacil who gallops across the ring and hands it to the man who stands ready to open the door of the toril, gallops back, salutes the president and gallops out while the servants smooth away the traces of the horse marks on the sand. This smoothing completed there is no one in the ring but the matador behind his little shelter or burladero and two banderilleros, one on each side of the ring, tight against the fence. It is very quiet and every one is looking at the red plank door. The president gives a signal with his handkerchief, the trumpet sounds and the very serious, white-haired, wide old man, his name is Gabriel, in a sort of burlesque bullfighter's suit (it was bought for him by popular subscription) unlocks the door of the toril and pulling heavily on it runs backward to expose the low passageway that shows as the door swings open.