Heriberto Garcia and Fermín Espinoza, Armillita Chico, are two Mexicans who are complete and capable artists with the muleta. Heriberto Garcia can equal the very best and his work does not have the cold Indian quality that takes away emotion from most Mexicans' work in the bull ring. Armillita is cold; a brown little chinless Indian with an odd collection of teeth, a beautiful build for a fighter, more length in legs than torso, and is one of the really great artists with the muleta.

Nicanor Villalta when he has a bull that charges straight enough so that the matador can put his feet together works closer to the bull, becomes more exalted, more excited, curving on himself so he thrusts his waistline at the horns and with his amazing wrist controlling the muleta brings the bull around him in circles, again and again, passes him so close before his chest that the bull's shoulder sometimes jostles him and the horns so close to his belly that you can see welts on his abdomen afterwards at the hotel, no exaggeration; I've seen the welts, but I thought they might have come from the shafts of the banderillas that struck him as he passed the bulk of the bull by him so close that it covered his shirt from blood; but they might have come from the flat of the horns, the horns were so close I did not want to watch them too closely. When he does a great faena it is all valor; valor and that magic wrist and it makes you put up with the greatest awkwardness you could see on all bulls which will not allow him to get his feet together. You may see a great faena of Villalta's in Madrid; he has drawn more good bulls there than any matador who ever lived. You are certain to see him as awkward looking as a praying mantis any time he draws a difficult bull, but remember that his awkwardness is caused by his physical structure, not cowardliness. Because of the way he is built he can only be graceful if he can put his feet together, and where awkwardness on the part of a naturally graceful bullfighter is a sign of panic, in Villalta it only means that he has drawn a bull which he must spread his legs apart to work with. But if you can ever see him when he can put his feet together, see him bend like a tree in a storm before the bull's charge, see him wind the bull around him again, and again, and again; see him get so excited that he will kneel in front of the bull after he has dominated him and bite the horn, then you will forgive him the neck God gave him, the muleta the size of a bed sheet that he uses and his telephone pole legs because his strange mixture of a body contains enough valor and pundonor to make a dozen bullfighters.

Cayetano Ordonez, Nino de la Palma, could manage the muleta perfectly with either hand, was a beautiful performer with a great artistic and dramatic sense of a faena, but he was never the same after he found the bulls carried terms in the hospital, inevitable, and death, perhaps, in their horns as well as five thousand peseta notes between their withers. He wanted the notes, but he was unwilling to approach the horns to get them when he found the forfeit that was collectable from their points. Courage comes such a short distance; from the heart to the head; but when it goes no one knows how far away it goes; in a hemorrhage, perhaps, or into a woman and it is a bad thing to be in bullfighting business when it is gone, no matter where it went. Sometimes you get it back from another wound, the first may bring fear of death and the second may take it away, and sometimes one woman takes it away and another gives it back. Bullfighters stay in the business relying on their knowledge and their ability to limit the danger and hope the courage will come back and sometimes it does and most times it does not.

Neither Enrique Torres nor Victoriano Roger Valencia II has any real ability with the muleta and it is that which limits them in their profession for they are both, at their best, fine artists with the cape. Luis Fuentes Bejarano and Diego Mazquarian, Fortuna, are two bullfighters, very brave, very sound in their knowledge of their profession, able to reduce difficult bulls and give competent performance with any, but with heavy undistinguished styles. Fortuna's is more old-fashioned than Bejarano's whose style is simply bad modern tricks, but they are alike in their bravery, their competence, their very good luck, and their lack of genius. They are matadors to see with ordinary or difficult bulls. Where the stylists would attempt nothing they will give you a competent bullfight with all the cheap thrills and theatricalisms intermixed with one or two moments of true emotion. Of the three best killers, in bullfighting, Antonio de la Haba, Zurito, Martin Aguero, and Manolo Martinez, only Martinez can give a semblance of a faena with the muleta and his success, when he has it, is entirely due to his courage and the chances he takes rather than any true ability in managing the serge.

Of the thirty-four other full matadors in active service only a few are worth mentioning. One, Andres Merida, from Malaga is a tall, thin, vacant-faced gypsy who is a genius with cape and muleta and is the only bullfighter I have ever seen who had a completely absent-minded air in the ring as though he were thinking of something very distant and very different. He is liable to attacks of fear so complete that there is no word for them, but if he becomes confident with a bull he can be wonderful. Of the three real gypsies, Cagancho, Gitanillo de Triana and Merida I like Merida the best. He has the grace of the others with an added grotesque which, with his absent-mindedness makes him, for me, the most appealing of all the gypsies after Gallo. Cagancho is, of all of them, the most talented. Gitanillo de Triana the bravest and most honorable. Last summer I heard from several people from Malaga that Merida was not really a gypsy. If this is true then he is even better as an imitation than a real one.

Saturio Toron is an excellent banderillero, very valiant, with the worst, most ignorant, most dangerous manner of working as a matador that I have ever seen. After being a banderillero he took the sword as an apprentice bullfighter in 1929 and he had an excellent season forcing success through valor and good luck. He was made a formal matador in 1930 by Marcial Lalanda at Pamplona and was severely gored in his first three fights. If his taste improves he can possibly rid himself of some of his small-town vulgarities of style and learn to fight bulls, but from what I saw of him in 1931 his case looked hopeless and I can only hope the bulls do not destroy him.

In this list of those who started as though they might be good matadors and end in varying degrees of failure and tragedy the two great causes of failure, eliminating bad luck, are lack of artistic ability, which of course cannot be overcome by valor, and fear. The two really brave matadors who have nevertheless failed to hold any place because of the shortness of their repertoires are Bernard Munoz, Carnicerito, and Antonio de la Haba, Zurito. Another who is really brave and has more of a repertoire than Carnicerito and Zurito and may amount to something although handicapped by lack of stature is Julio Garcia, Palmeno.

Besides Domingo Ortega, whom I have written about in another place in this book, the new matadors of any reputation include José Amoros, who has a peculiar rubbery style, seeming to stretch away from the bull as though he were made of elastic bands, and is completely second rate, except of course in his unique rubberyness; José Gonzalez called Carnicerito of Mexico, a Mexican Indian belonging to the gutful-wonder school who eats them alive and while very brave, a good banderillero and a capable and very emotional performer will not be with us very long if he takes the same chances with the real bulls that he does with the young ones and, since he has accustomed his public to such strong sensations, will almost certainly cease to interest if he stops taking these chances; and, most promising of all the new fighters, Jesus Solorzano. Jesus, called Chucho, in case you don't know the diminutive for that Christian name, is a non-Indian Mexican who is a perfect bullfighter, brave, artistic, intelligent and dominating every department of his art completely except the very minor one of administering the descabello or coup de grâce, and yet is completely without personality. This lack of personality is difficult to analyze, but so far it seems to consist of a sort of apologetic, slinking, faulty, hump-backed way of carrying himself when he is not directly involved with the bull. Bullfighters say that fear of a bull takes the type away from a bullfighter, that is, if he is arrogant and bossy, or easy and graceful, fear removes these characteristics; but Solorzano seems to have no type to lose. Yet when he is working with a bull that he is confident with he is perfect in everything he does and he placed the finest pair of banderillas walking slowly, foot by foot toward the bull in the style of Gaona, did the best and slowest work with the cape and the closest and most emotional faena with the muleta that I saw in all the season of 1931. The negative part of his work is that he performs beautifully with the bull and then as soon as he steps away from the animal lapses into that humpbacked, frozen-faced apathy, but personality or not he is a wonderful bullfighter with knowledge and great art and valor.