grunting as they took him up the stairway, and then laid him down.
The doctor and two men in white were waiting for him. They laid him out on the table. They were cutting away his shirt. Manuel felt tired. His whole chest felt scalding inside. He started to cough and they held something to his mouth. Everybody was very busy.
There was an electric light in his eyes. He shut his eyes.
He heard someone coming very heavily up the stairs. Then he did not hear it. Then he heard a noise far off. That was the crowd. Well, somebody would have to kill his other bull. They had cut away all his shirt. The doctor smiled at him. There was Retana.
“Hello, Retana!” Manuel said. He could not hear his voice.
Retana smiled at him and said something. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito stood beside the table, bending over where the doctor was working. He was in his picador clothes, without his hat.
Zurito said something to him. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito was speaking to Retana. One of the men in white smiled and handed Retana a pair of scissors. Retana gave them to Zurito. Zurito said something to Manuel. He could not hear it.
To hell with this operating-table. He’d been on plenty of operating-tables before. He was not going to die. There would be a priest if he was going to die.
Zurito was saying something to him. Holding up the scissors.
That was it. They were going to cut off his coleta. They were going to cut off his pigtail.
Manuel sat up on the operating-table. The doctor stepped back, angry. Someone grabbed him and held him.
“You couldn’t do a thing like that, Manos,” he said.
He heard suddenly, clearly, Zurito’s voice.
“That’s all right,” Zurito said. “I won’t do it. I was joking.”
“I was going good,” Manuel said. “I didn’t have any luck. That was all.”
Manuel lay back. They had put something over his face. It was
