Death in the afternoon

Zurito never had any luck. His apprenticeship uncompleted he had the shortest kind of repertoire with cape and muleta, the latter consisting principally of passes por alto and the easily learned trick of the molinete and the excellence of his swordsmanship and the purity of his style with the sword were obscured by the hair-raising campaign Litri was making and the great season Nino de la Palma had. Zurito had two good seasons after Litri's death, but before he ever had a chance to really become a dominating figure his work was old-fashioned since he made no improvement with the cape and muleta and, as he always aimed the sword for the very top of the opening between the shoulder blades and going in so high with his left shoulder forward it was difficult to keep the muleta low enough to get rid of the bull completely, he took much punishment from the bulls; especially those terrible blows from the flat of the horn against the chest with which the bulls lifted him off his feet nearly every time he killed. Then he almost lost a season from internal injuries and a growth of some sort that came on his lip where it had been hurt. In 1927 he was fighting in such bad physical condition that it was tragic to watch him. He knew that to lose out on a single season may put a bullfighter in the discard so that he will have only two or three fights a year and not be able to make a living and all that season Zurito was fighting; his face, that had been a healthy brown, now as gray as weathered canvas; so short of breath that it was pitiful to see him; yet attacking as straight, as close and with the same classic style and the same bad luck, When the bull bumped him off his feet or gave him one of those palatazos or strokes with the flat of the horn that the bullfighters claim harm as much as wounds since they cause internal hemorrhages, he would faint from weakness, be carried into the infirmary, brought to, and come out again, weak as a convalescent, to kill his other bull. Due to his style of killing he was bumped nearly every time he killed. He fought twenty-one times, fainted dead away in twelve of them, and killed all of his forty-two bulls. It was not enough though, because his work with the cape and muleta, never stylish, in the condition he was in was not even competent, and the publics did not like to see him faint. There was an editorial against it in the San Sebastian paper. That was the town where he had been most successful and they did not contract him again since his fainting was very repugnant to foreigners and the best people. So that season, in which he gave the most harrowing display of courage I have ever seen, did him no good. He married at the end of it. She wanted to marry him, they said, before he died, and instead he got much better; became rather fat, and loving his wife did not go in quite so straight on the bulls and fought only fourteen times. The next year he fought only seven times in Spain and South America. The next year he was going in as straight as ever, but he had only two contracts in Spain for the whole year; not enough to support his family. Of course his fainting that year was not pleasant to see, but he only knew one way to kill and that was perfectly and if, in attempting it, the horn or the muzzle struck him and he lost the consciousness of this world that was his hard luck and he always returned to fight as soon as he was conscious. The public did not like it. It became an old story so rapidly. I did not like it myself, but by Christ how I admired it. Too much honor destroys a man quicker than too much of any other fine quality and with a little bad luck it ruined Zurito in one season.

Old Zurito, the father, brought up one son to be a matador and taught him honor, technique and classic style and that boy is a failure in spite of great skill and integrity. He taught the other boy to be a picador and he has a perfect style, great courage, is a splendid horseman and would be the best picador in Spain but for one thing. He is too light to be able to punish the bulls. No matter how hard he pegs them he can barely draw blood. So he, with the most ability and style of any picador living, is pic-ing in novilladas at fifty to a hundred pesetas apiece when with fifty pounds more weight he would be continuing the great tradition of the father. There is another son, too, who is a picador that I have not seen; but they tell me he too is too light. They are not a lucky family.

Martin Aguero, the third of the killers, was a boy from Bilbao who did not look like a bullfighter at all but more like a husky, well-built, professional ballplayer, a third baseman or shortstop. He had a full-lipped face, German-American looking in the sense that Nick Altrock's was, and was no artist with cape or muleta although he managed a cape well enough; sometimes excellently; understood bullfighting; was not ignorant; and did what he did with the muleta well although he was altogether without artistic imagination. Put him down as a capable and close worker with the cape and a competent but dull performer with the muleta. With the sword he was a secure and rapid killer. His estocadas always looked wonderful in photographs because the photograph does not give any sense of time, but when you watched him kill he went in so lightning fast that even though he killed more securely than Zurito, crossing magnificently, and nine times out of ten getting the sword in all the way to the hilt yet one estocada of Zurito's was worth many of Aguero's to watch, since Zurito went in so slowly and directly, marking the time of the killing so completely that there was no element of taking the bull by surprise. Aguero killed like a butcher boy and Zurito like a priest at benediction.

Aguero was very brave and very efficient and was one of the leading matadors in 1925, 1926, and 1927, fighting fifty and fifty-two times in those last two years and almost never being tossed. In 1928 he was gored severely twice, the second cornada coming as a result of his fighting before he was in good shape after the first, and the two of them breaking down his fine health and physique. A nerve in one of his legs was so badly injured that it atrophied and this led to gangrene of the toes of his right foot and an operation for their removal in 1931. The last I heard his foot had been so mutilated that it was considered impossible that he would ever fight again. He leaves two younger brothers as novilleros with the same looks, the same athletic physique and the begi

Diego Mazquiaran "Fortuna" of Bilbao is another great killer of the butcher-boy type. Fortuna is curly-haired, bigwristed, husky, swaggering, married much money, fights just enough to have money of his own, is brave as the bull himself and just a little less intelligent. He is the luckiest man that ever fought bulls. He knows only one way to work with a bull, he treats them as though they were all difficult and chops them and doubles them into position with the muleta no matter what sort of faena they require. If the bull happens to be difficult this is very satisfactory, but if he is asking for a grand faena it is not. Once he gets their two front feet together, Fortuna furls the muleta, profiles with the sword, looks over his shoulder at his friends and says, "See if we can kill him this way!" and goes in straight, strong and well. He is so lucky that the sword may even cut the spinal marrow and drop the bull as though he were struck by lightning. If he is not lucky he will sweat and his hair will get more frizzy, he will explain to the spectators with gestures the difficulties of the animal; will call on them all to witness it is not his, Fortuna's, fault. The next day in his regular seat in tendido two (he is one of the few bullfighters who attend bullfights regularly), when a really difficult bull comes out for some other fighter to handle, he will tell all the rest of us, "That's not a difficult bull. That bull is good. He ought to do something with that bull." Fortuna is really brave though, brave and stupid. He has absolutely no nervousness about the fight. I have heard him say to a picador, "Come on. Come on. Hurry it up. I'm bored in here. The whole thing bores me. Hurry it up." Among the fragile artists, he stands out as a survival from a different time. But he will bore you blinder than he ever has been bored in the ring if you sit near him for a season.