There are no picadors, armed with lances to prick the bull to madness; no banderilleros, with barbed darts; no heroic matador, ready with shining blade to give a mad and weary bull the coup de grace.

Even in my capacity as dramatic poet, I always find the spontaneous outburst of an overcrowded theatre ten times more interesting, even more instructive, than the sophisticated judgment of some literary matador, who is crippled in body and soul and swollen up, spider-like, with the blood of authors whom he has sucked dry.

He is then faced by the principal matador, who holds a straight sword in one hand and a flag in the other; as the bull runs at him with full speed, the matador coolly, but with great celerity, takes one step to the left, holding the flag just over the spot he occupied when the bull took aim.