THE GAME . OF DEATH
.IN.the early autumn of 1935, when Belmonte's admirers flocked taMadrid and Seville to attend the latest and probably the finest of his several rumoured or intended farewell performances, .these memoirs were appearing by weekly instalments in Ahora ;
recounted to a journalist, Manuel Chaves Nogales, and written up by him, they read extremely well as a feuilleton, were imme- diately reprinted in book form, and, decked out to the French
taste, recently ran again as a serial in Confessions. A full-length
biography of Belmonte, by Antonio de in Villa, had already been published in 1928 and, following the success of Hemingway's
opus on bullfighting, a Life entitled Belmonte the Matador appeared in England and America in 1934. An ecstatic mono- graph by a Peruvian professor and a score of popular pamphlets compkte the comparatively small bibliography inspired by the greatest living matador, who is perhaps also the greatest bull- fighter that ever lived, and certainly the creator of modern bull- fighting: Yet this present work, an autobiography at two renioves; which began as a series of interviews and has made its slightly devious way into a plain and pleasant English translation, is the authoritative and probably the final life-story of the out- standing genius in a despised art. It remains a " popular " book, the suitable portrait of a Popular idol ; and, although clearly not intended for humanitarians, a record of extraordinary hu-man interest.
To the reader not afflicted by a passion for bullfighting, Belmonte's book can be expected to appeal as a simple and exciting success-story. Anyone who knows little about bull- fighting, and cares less, can with a glimmering of goodwill and imagination enjoy it to the full on this plane. A Spaniard who read Mr. Noel Coward's Present Indicative, never having heard of that gifted young man, would undoubtedly appreciate the nature of his success, without perhaps recognising any valid reasons for it. Belmonte's triumphs in an unfamiliar and questionable sphere are harder for the uninitiated reader to assess ; but they are more dramatic than the dramatist's. Furthermore there is such modesty and mockery in the telling of them, such honesty in the admissions of failure, that the sensitive and unprejudiced reader must soon be convinced of the author's remarkable qualifies. He will not have to take the value of this man's artistic achievement entirely on trust, though its more vivid significance may escape him ; the reminiscences themselves he must accept on their merits, but their merit will be largely apparent from the assurance and detachment, the unaffected humility and pride, of their expression. Belmonte cannot be accused of rushing into print, or of flinching from it. The .way this brave man speaks of fear indicates his courage ; his. constant humour reveals intelligence ; the quiet intensity of his allegiance to a vocation suggests his calibre as an artist.
Reflections of greatness are discernible on many of these retailed, translated pages, which abound also in amusing anecdotes, crude practical jokes, picaresque details, romantic incidents and coarse misfortune, for they tell the whole story of a ragamuffin risen from the people, beloved and made famous by them, to become a millionaire envied and robbed by the people. The frail, ungainly urchin who swam the Guadalquivir at night to trespass, naked, among full-grown fighting-bulls on the range, to confront them there with his coat by the- light-of the moon or a lantern ; the novice who would shortly be killed, because he fought as it was known to be impossible to fight ; the invalid who could hardly move in the ring and once fell asleep on an operating-table ; who, having picked the most dangerous of ballets for his profession, imposed his own inner rhythm on death, in the shape of the bull, by strength of will and wrist alone ; who established the golden age of an intricate sport in rivalry with its most brilliant and athletic exponent—and survives him, middle-aged now and still unable to retire, since, although he has wider intellectual interests than any other torero, the mainspring of his life is there, in the lunging threat of a bull's horns : that, roughly. sketched, is the life-scenario of the man whose sardonic; courteous personality has fashioned this haphazard . book. Haphazard, because, despite the faithful collaboration of his reporter and translator, Belmonte's personal style is as marked in the revelations and reticences of these pages as in the classical restraint and intensity of his work in the ring.
The intimate confidences of a man who has several thousand times faced his destruction in public, under a glaring sun,
cannot be less than startling, and could never be so revealing as the perfected drama of his performance itself. And Belmonte has often been seen to fail before a bull ; but never to falter.
There is one anecdote, perhaps apocryphal, which is of course missing from the frank account given here of Johnny the Earthquake's " first harsh rivalry and later friendship with the incomparably gifted Joselito. After a corrida in which they both competed, Joselito is said to have turned angrily on a group of his partisans who were flattering him, with the remark : " Yes, certainly I am the greatest bull- fighter alive—but this afternoon that man invented bull- fighting ! " Whether this scene took place or not, there is in that utterance a truth which, if borne in mind by the uninitiate reader, will clarify for him the principal, underlying emotion of a simple and astonishing career.
Except for undertones of Hemingway and a dozen very minor errors, the Introduction to the art of bullfighting with which Mr. Charteris has provided his admirable English version of Belmonte's book could scarcely have been better done. The illustrations, on the other hand, could—and should— have been more carefully selected. But the aficionado will prize this autobiography, above all, for the ten-page Epilogue in which the master himself pronounces on modern bull- fighting—succinctly, simply, and to the point.
JOHN MARKS.
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