Death in the afternoon

A SHORT ESTIMATE OF THE AMERICAN, SIDNEY FRANKLIN, AS A MATADOR

Most Spaniards do not go to bull fights, only a small proportion do, and of those who attend, the competent aficionados are limited in number. Yet many times I have heard people say that they asked a Spaniard, an actual Spaniard, mind you, what sort of bullfighter Sidney Franklin was, and the Spaniard said he was very brave but very awkward and did not know what it was all about. If you asked that Spaniard if he had seen Franklin fight he would say no; what has happened is that he has told the way, from national pride, the Spaniards hoped he would fight. He does not fight that way at all.

Franklin is brave with a cold, serene, and intelligent valor but instead of being awkward and ignorant he is one of the most skillful, graceful, and slow manipulators of a cape fighting to-day. His repertoire with the cape is enormous but he does not attempt by a varied repertoire to escape from the performance of the veronica as the base of his cape work and his veronicas are classical, very emotional, and beautifully timed and executed. You will find no Spaniard who ever saw him fight who will deny his artistry and excellence with the cape.

He does not place banderillas, never having studied or practiced this properly, and this is a serious omission since, with his physique, judgment of distance, and coolness, he could have been a very good banderillero.

Franklin manages the muleta well with his right hand but uses his left hand far too little. He kills easily and well. He does not give the importance to killing that it merits, since it is easy for him and because he ignores the danger. Profiling with more style his kills would gain greatly in emotion.

He is a better, more scientific, more intelligent, and more finished matador than all but about six of the full matadors in Spain to-day and the bullfighters know it and have the utmost respect for him.

It is too late for him to become a good banderillero, but he understands his other faults and is constantly correcting them. With the cape he has no improvement to make; he is a professor, a Doctor of Tauromachia, and not only a classic artist but an inventor and innovator as well.

He was formed and taught by Rodolfo Gaona, the Mexican, the only matador who ever competed on equal terms with Joselito and Belmonte and who himself was formed and taught by a banderillero of the great Frascuelo, who gave him the most complete training in the classic fundamentals of bullfighting which are ignored by most young matadors who have much courage, a little grace and youth, and posture and hope for the best; and it was the art and soundness of Franklin's fighting which he learned in the best school possible which so amazed and enthused the Spaniards.

He had great and legitimate artistic triumphs in Sevilla, Madrid, and San Sebastian before the elite of the aficionados as well as triumphs in Cadiz, Ceuta, and other towns in the provinces. He filled the Madrid ring so there was not a ticket to be had three times running, the first time as an American and a novelty every one was curious to see after his great success in Sevilla, but the next two on his merits as a bullfighter. That was in 1929 and that year he could have taken the alternative as a formal matador de toros at any one of half a dozen cities, and I would then have written of him in the body of this book with the other matadors de toros, but he wisely wanted another year as a novillero, he was fighting as often as he wished and getting more as a novillero than many matadors de toros, and another year as a novillero would give him that much more time to perfect his work with the muleta and his experience and knowledge of the Spanish bulls, which are quite different from the Mexican. He ran into bad luck on his second fight early in March of 1930, when he was gored by a bull he had turned his back to after having put the sword in and received a tremendous wound that perforated the rectum, sphincter muscle and large intestine, and when he was able to start filling his contracts his wound was still open and he fought through the season in bad physical shape. During the winter of 1930-31 he fought in Mexico and alternating with Marcial Lalanda in Nuevo Laredo he received an unimportant horn wound in the calf of the leg which would have caused him no inconvenience (he fought the following Sunday), except that the surgeon who attended him insisted on administering antitetanus and anti-gangrene vaccine. These injections coming too soon after the usual injections of the same serums he had received when he was wounded in Madrid caused a breaking out in a sort of boil on his left arm which swelled and made the arm nearly useless and spoiled his 1931 season in Spain. Then too he came to Spain from Mexico with plenty of money from his winter campaign and more desire to enjoy life than to start in fighting at once. He had made the Madrid ring pay him the very top price when he was in such demand the year before and as soon as he decided that he was ready to fight the management took their revenge by the typically Spanish method of putting him off on one pretext or another until they had all their dates contracted for.

He has the ability in languages, the cold courage and the ability to command of the typical soldier of fortune, he is a charming companion, one of the best story tellers I have ever heard, has enormous and omnivorous curiosity about everything but gets his information through the eye and ear and reads only The Saturday Evening Post, which he goes through from cover to cover each week, usually finishing it in about three days and then having four bad days of waiting for the next number. He is a very hard master to those who work for him, yet commands amazing loyalty. He speaks Spanish not only perfectly but with the accent of whatever place he may be; he does all his own business and is very proud of his business judgment, which is terrible. He believes in himself as confidently as an opera singer does but he is not conceited.

I have purposely written nothing about his life, since having led it at great peril and in an utterly fantastic manner he would seem to be entitled to whatever profits the story of it might bring. At one time and another I have heard the whole story from the beginning through the fall of 1931 and I have been present while certain chapters of it were happening and it is better than any picaresque novel you ever read. Any man's life, told truly, is a novel, but the bullfighter's life has an order in the tragedy of its progression which tends to formalize the story into a groove. Sidney's life has escaped this and he has truly lived three lives, one Mexican, one Spanish, and one American, in a way that is unbelievable. The story of those lives belongs to him and I will not tell it to you. But I can tell you truly, all question of race and nationality aside, that with the cape he is a great and fine artist and no history of bullfighting that is ever written can be complete unless it gives him the space he is entitled to.