“One understands the action of our brother Basilio.”
“Still I have no real confidence in the integrity of Basilio Alvarez.”
“Madrid is where one learns to understand. Madrid kills Spain.”
“If they would simply see one and refuse.”
“No. You must be broken and worn out by waiting.”
“Well, we shall see. I can wait as well as another.”
At this moment the picador got to his feet, walked over to the priests’table and stood, gray-headed and hawk-faced, staring at them and smiling.
“A torero,” said one priest to the other.
“And a good one,” said the picador and walked out of the dining room, gray-jacketed, trim-waisted, bow-legged, in tight breeches over his high-heeled cattlemen’s boots that clicked on the floor as he swaggered quite steadily, smiling to himself. He lived in a small, tight, professional world of personal efficiency, nightly alcoholic triumph, and insolence. Now he lit a cigar and tilting his hat at an angle in the hallway went out to the café.
The priests left immediately after the picador, hurriedly conscious of being the last people in the dining room, and there was no one in the room now but Paco and the middle-aged waiter. They cleared the tables and carried the bottles into the kitchen.
In the kitchen was the boy who washed the dishes. He was three years older than Paco and was very cynical and bitter.
“Take this,” the middle-aged waiter said, and poured out a glass of the Valdepeñas and handed it to him.
“Why not?” the boy took the glass.
“Tu, Paco?” the older waiter asked.
“Thank you,” said Paco. The three of them drank.
“I will be going,” said the middle-aged waiter.
“Good night,” they told him.
He went out and they were alone. Paco took a napkin one of the priests had used and standing straight, his heels planted,
