Townsend Harris High School - Crimson Gold Yearbook (Flushing, NY)

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7 ?g.-S-Q , f 9? 'A-253' , ,R 0 U A - ?fu.' ,, . fide.-f. -z'i'f fini l XX lei 5 gifftflsi' ' ' i , ' A , .. A 'Y ,, u . 'P Inf ' ' J a I , 7 1 1 ji ' I f x X149 .rings- .V - , . ,A -7 -.-Xe A?X ii.SNiiYn '5 ff! yr 5 NH, 9 ..,'fT':-Q ,f-5'-' 'A' Salvator stepped aside, twisted the cloak, brought the creature back again. An exquisite chest-high pass! Raptly, Solita gazed at the matador. Ah, she murmured, uthat is indeed a man!,' 'gPah!', spat Jaime. 4'That is ordinary. And what is a bullfighter? One who must exhibit what anyone else can do, because he is unable to accomplish the other things in which the rest of us succeed! Annoyed, Solita glanced at him. Then, softly, bitingly, '6You are jealous, Jaime? Attention was turned once more to the bulllight. The famous man was executing a series of brilliant manoeuvers, which drew the breathless admiration of the crowd: Ah, bravo! Oyez! Look at that! Again Solita murmured something, but just what, Jaime could only guess. He was sullen nowg his every remark disparaged the work of Salvator. Finally, 'cWhy must you admire that so? I could do as well-better- with ease! Exasperated, Solita mocked him. The fickle Solita! A dare, Jaime, a dare! Go there, do as well. Do as well, my friend! The boy looked at her. She laughed scorn- fully. Trepiclation--and pride--mingled in his unsure, weak smile, H. . . l . . . He threw down his hat, snatched the red shawl from her shoulders. Holding it on the outstretched cane, he ran down to the barrier, vaulted it, ran toward the bull, tripped on the trailing shawl-fell to his knees. Jaime saw the bull coming. He must haveg for at the last moment, he waved the red cloth over to one side, frantically. Jaime was proud--but he was not a bullfighter. He felt the shock, felt the searing, terrible pain as the horn pierced through to his stom- ach. All went numb, then, and a white haze slowly gathered before his eyes. Peculiar, that, he thought. He had always heard that one found things turning black, when one couldn't see. But here it was, white. Yes, so white-burning white, awful white, glaring white-growing hotter, larger as a ball of flame-and in the terrible percussion of his realization of a new sun, Jaime lost con- sciousness. They finally attracted the bull, tired of goring this still, quiet victim, to another side, Page forty

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could, and then, as soon as the horse was thrown over and the bull began goring at its abdomen, made sure that he was on the side of his steed away from the savagely tearing beast. Two horses were used on this bull, the spectators laughing and clapping hands in glee. But this is, some say, the least part of the Corrida. It does, however, tire the bull. Banderillas! A youthful toreador grasped a pair of the long, tape-wound sticks with the barb-hooked ends, and ran out to the middle of the whitewashed ring in the center of the arena. Poised gracefully on his toes, waving the barbs, he attracted the attention of the Toro. The infuriated creature rushed to meet -only a new and more excrutiating kind of pain! A cleverly placed pair! The bullfighter ran straight toward his object, swerving just as the sharp horns seemed about to enter his body, and lunged forward on tiptoe, from the side, then ran back. The bull leaped, squirmed, bellowed, trying to bite at the two keen, flapping things which would not come out of his shoulders. Indeed a cleverly placed pair, and cries to that effect came from the now thoroughly excited crowd: Un buen par! '6Bravo! Ah, Martinez! Twice repeated, these banderillas, until the enraged beast was rushing madly, wildly, about the circle. Suddenly the trumpet sounded! Time for the matador! Ah, breathed Solita, unow, something? Jaime started, looked at her. He had been as interested in the fight as she, but now- he wondered. The fickle Solita! The fickle Solita? . Out walked Salvator, out, out, till he faced the wife of the Governor. HSenora! Bow- ing low, he tossed his hat to her. What a grand tradition, this handsome gesture! She smiled. Slowly he walked to the center of the ring, firmly in his right hand he gripped his great scarlet cape, quite different from the lighter, smaller cloak of the toreadorg he held his sword in the same hand, at an angle from the stick which held firm the top of the heavy cloth. Stamping his foot impatiently, he attracted the bull-who had been watching the torea- dors, once again forming in the semi-circle about the rim of the arena-to himself. Wildly, head down, tail stiflly out-thrust be- hind, the bull charged the cape, gracefully page thirty-nine

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to continue with the sportg and Jaime was quickly lifted to a stretcher and carried to the hospital, behind the arena. Coming out of the room in which they had put the boy, the doctor collided with a girl. A tearful girl it was, a girl no longer looking gay, without her scarlet shawl, a rose droop- ping behind her ear. Doctor-the-Jaime 2 Young fool,,' commented the man, un- pleasantly. No use of my wasting time here on him. Some good horses over there I have to sew up for the next bull. Thereis a man with him. Jaime, suddenly becoming conscious of voices, thought he recognized one of them. He tried to see, but the haze, that misty white haze, was still there. He turned feebly, at- tempted to speak, but the pain was agonizing, and he subsided. But the movement had been noticed. Jaime! from Solita. How peculiar her voice sounded! It was easy . . . I could have done it . . . your shawl . . . too long. . . The first words hard to understand, the last almost entirely undecipherable. Jaime stirred. Ceuta is still a very Spanish town. And its people still like bullfights. But the nags of the picadors are padded now, so that the bulls cannot gore them so badly. Solita has grown fatter. She, too, has retained her love for the Toros. She no longer has any ardent admirers, so she must take her greatest pleas- ure in telling the young ones how ua man once fought a bull for herf' But they do not know who it was. Solita never says that Jaime was killed. VV V page forty-one