He was very short with a brown face and quite drunk and he said, “After all, it has happened before like that.”

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all.

If it happened right down close in front of you, you could see Villalta snarl at the bull and curse him, and when the bull charged he swung back firmly like an oak when the wind hits it, his legs tight together, the muleta trailing and the sword following the curve behind.