Retana sat, saying nothing and looking at Manuel. 'Yes, while you're in there,' Retana said. 'There aren't any bull-fighters any more,' Retana said. 'Why don't you get a job and go to work?' he said. 'No,' Retana waved his hand, 'I never smoke.' 'Smoke?' he said, offering the match to Retana. Retana leaned forward across the desk and pushed a wooden box of cigarettes toward Manuel. 'I heard they'd cut your leg off,' Retana said. 'I just got out of the hospital,' Manuel said. He looked pale, and his coleta pinned forward on his head, so that it would not show under the cap, gave him a strange look. Manuel sat down his cap off, his face was changed. He looked at Manuel, leaning back behind the big desk. What do they say about them at the Café?' 'The lot the Duke sent me for Sunday will make a scandal,' he said. Retana saw him looking at the stuffed bull's head. The plate said: 'The Bull ?Mariposa' of the Duke of Veragua, which accepted 9 varas for 7 caballos, and caused the death of Antonio Garcia, Novillero, April 27, 1909.' Manuel could not read it, but he imagined it was in memory of his brother. There was a brass plate on the oak shield the bull's head was mounted on. It had killed his brother, the promising one, about nine years ago. He leaned back in the chair and looked at Manuel. 'I read about it in the papers,' Retana said. 'How many corridas you had this year?' Retana asked. The little man sat looking at him across the desk. Manuel knocked with his knuckles on the desk. Over his head was a bull's head, stuffed by a Madrid taxidermist on the walls were framed photographs and bull-fight posters. Manuel went in, carrying his suitcase.Ī little man sat behind a desk at the far side of the room. Something in the door clicked several times and it swung open.

'Who's there?' said some one in the office. Manuel, standing in the hallway, felt there was some one in the room. He set down his suitcase and knocked on the door. Manuel Garcia climbed the stairs to Don Miguel Retana's office.

Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway