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My Life in the Bull Ring with Donald Ogden Stewart – a short story by Ernest Hemingway
Sandra Spanier on the significance of My Life in the Bull Ring ...
I
had often encountered Stewart in the bull ring before but I had paid no particular attention to him. He seemed one of that type of Americans one encounters only too frequently in continental watering places.
The first remark Stewart ever addressed to me was in the Plaza de Toros at Pamplona.
"Watch out," Stewart said. "That bull is mad."
As I had once known rather well the wife of the American ambassador to Spain when she was on an European tour I knew a little of Americanisims and naturally supposed the fellow meant that the bull was angry.
"It's nothing unusual in these circumstances," I said, selecting a brace of banderillas.
"The hell it isn't," said Stewart.
This was a bit too much even from an American so I did not reply but merely waved my peons back and prepared to incite the bull to the banderillas. But as I prepared to incite the quadruped I noticed an unusual thing. The bull's eyes were fixed on Stewart. I turned to Stewart and said in what I trust was a polite tone, "I say old chap. Do be a good fellow and just step back of that barrier."
"I tell you that bull's mad," Stewart shouted.
By this time the crowd was taking a hand in affairs and commenced to shout encouragement at Stewart and hurl insults at myself.
"We want Don Stewart!" was the burden of their shouting and I soon saw that they had confused his first name with a Spanish title and taking Stewart for a fellow countryman were attempting to make a national hero of him.
"Give us Don!" a large red faced fellow was shouting almost into my ear.
"Give us our money back!" others cried.
"Give us our money back and give us Don!" the red faced chap combined the two shouts.
"We want Don Stewart," a section of the arena filled with young roughs commenced shouting.
"I say!" a gigantic Spaniard with earrings waving an automatic pistol bellowed above the uproar. "I say. Give us Don Stewart."
Just then someone hurled a ripe tomato that struck me full in the face. That was hardly cricket and I turned on the crowd.
I raised my hand for silence and the crowd were stilled. I saw that I still retained my old popularity and as I cleared the tomato from my eyes with a handkerchief the Queen Mother had given me I determined to teach the fickle crowd their lesson.
"Hombres," I said. "Mujeres, Bambinos," employing the Castilian dialect, "I am through."
It took rather more than a quarter of an hour to say this in Castilian but I was well repaid by the roar of applause that went up as I finished.
"Don Stewart, Don Stewart, Don Stewart," the young roughs were chanting.
The large Spaniard in the seats just behind me seemed in the grip of some blood lust.
"Don," he muttered. "Don." Then gripping the railings and his face purpling until I was quite distressed at the sight. "He kills them! He eats them alive!"
I turned, bowed at the crowd with the best grace I could muster and handed my sword and muleta to Stewart. Stewart accepted them with a muttered word of thanks. He turned from me with a quick firm handclasp and addressed the crowd.
"Hombres! Femini! Piccoli!" he began, employing my own native Andalucian. "Is there a doctor in the house?"
A rather seedy individual detached himself from a group of what were obviously medical students and rose to his feet.
"I said a doctor," Stewart said in a harsh voice.
The fellow sat down.
"I thought you said a dentist," he muttered.
"Is there no doctor in the house?" Stewart called.
"Nada. Nada," the populace shouted. "There was a doctor but he is drunk."
"Thank God," Stewart muttered to me in a quick aside. "I am a Christian Scientist."
I commenced to like the fellow.
Pulling his bowler hat, no, now I recollect it was a cap, Stewart never wore his bowler into the ring, down over his eyes Stewart again addressed the crowd.
"I swear to you that I will kill this bull or that he will kill me," he pronounced the oath in the Old Castilian. There was a rustle of applause for his choice of dialects. Stewart turned and cast his sword and muleta into the audience. A deathlike hush fell.
"He's going to kill him with his bare hands," someone cried.
In back of me the Spaniard with the blood lust rocked back and forth.
"He kills them," he moaned. "He eats them alive."
Stewart grasped me by the hand.
"Will you stand by me Hemingway?" he asked.
I looked into his clear gray eyes.
"To the death," I said.
Stewart jumped sharply to one side.
"Don't mention that word," he said.
Stewart strode toward the bull and as the bull charged Stewart charged. I had never seen anything like it since the death of Gallito. There was a confused moment that I find it difficult now to reconstruct and I only remember Stewart and the bull tossing each other round and round the ring. Then it was over and Stewart stood clear to let the bull fall. He had killed him with his naked hands.
Poor fellow he was a dreadful sight. His ribs stuck out like the bones of an old corset. He was holding his pancreas with his left hand. As I reached him a small boy who had raced from the barrier stooped down in the sand and picked up something. He handed it to Stewart who hurriedly tucked it into place. It was his duodenum.
"You'd better wash that," I urged him.
"It doesn't matter," Stewart said, and fainted.
When he regained consciousness we were surrounded by a crowd. They were trying to cut souvenirs from his clothing. Already a lively traffic in these was springing up all over the Arena.
Stewart made a sign to me. I bent close. He whispered in my ear.
"Tell them what I did to Philadelphia Jack O'Brien," he whispered hoarsely. I did not know the gentleman in question. But I had seen Stewart in action with that mad bull. Perhaps I let my imagination run a little. But holding Stewart in my arms I told them. In my best Old Castilian which I had reserved for the occasion of my son's twenty first birthday I told them.
Stewart only opened his eyes once while I was speaking.
"You tell 'em, kid," he said. "You tell 'em."
Happily the poor fellow recovered.
• "My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart" appears in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 2, 1923-1925, edited by Sandra Spanier, Albert J DeFazio III and Robert W Trogdon, published on 22 October by Cambridge University Press
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