"But, yes! The bulls are killed for food. That is what foreigners do not seem to understand. It may be ugly, but it is universal. To supply men with meat, to feed great cities with the flesh of beasts--it is not pleasant to think of that too closely. But how to help it? Do you not have slaughter-houses in America? These also we have in Spain. I have visited one. It seemed to me much worse than the bull-ring. Faugh! I did not like it. The cattle stood trembling, one behind another, waiting for the blow. I should not like to die like that. I would rather die in the wrath of battle like a _toro bravo_. Oh, it is not cruel. Do not think it. For these bulls feel no fear. It is fear that degrades. They may feel pain, but I doubt--I doubt. They feel the wildness of anger, and they charge and charge again until the _estocada_, the death stab. That is not so bad a way to die, is it? Any man would choose it rather than to stand in terror, bound and helpless, hearing the others fall under the axe and seeing his turn draw near. Yes, yes! The bull-ring rather than the slaughter-house for me!"
This was a novel view of the case to the auditor, who ignominiously shifted her ground.
"But what country uses the slaughter-house as a spectacle and a sport? It is one thing to take life for food, and another to make a holiday of the death struggle."
Again that deprecatory waving of the hands.
"I beg your pardon. I do not know how it is in America. Perhaps" [circumflex accent] "all is merciful and noble there. But when I was in England I saw something of the chase and of the autumn shooting. I saw a poor little fox hunted to the death. It was not for food. The dogs tore him. I saw wounded birds left in the cover to die. It was too much trouble to gather them all up. And the deer? Does not the stag suffer more in his flight than the bull in his struggle? I believe it. To run and run and run, always growing weaker, while the chase comes nearer--that is an agony. The rage of combat has no terror in it. I would not die like the deer, hunted down by packs of dogs and men--and ladies. I would die like the bull, hearing the cheers of the multitude."
The big fellow bent over the baby that was dropping to sleep against his knee, and slipped the drowsy little body, deftly and tenderly, to a sofa. Such sweetness flooded the soft black eyes, as they were lifted from the child, that it was hard to imagine them sparkling with savage delight over the bloody scenes of the _corrida de toros_. I asked impulsively how long it was since he had seen a bull-fight. Brows and hands and shoulders were swift to express their appreciation of the bearings of the question, and the voice became very music in courteous acquiescence.