Finito de Palencia

Finito de Palencia was a bullfighter and Pilar’s former partner, remembered through her account of the contrast between his persistent fear and his courage in the ring. His story joins a working life shaped by poverty and danger to five years of intimacy with Pilar, ending with his death and her eventual relationship with Pablo.

Identity and Background

Before the political movement, Finito worked as a matador. Pablo had met Pilar while working for a horse contractor in Zaragoza who supplied horses to bullrings and army remounts; Pilar had been with Finito at the time. Pablo recalled this connection with pride, while another man at the table dismissed Finito as not much of a matador. Pilar’s response turned the casual slight into a defense of the man she had known.

Pilar describes Finito as short, brown-haired, and sober-faced, with sunken cheeks and a thin voice. Her recollection also situates his career within poverty: she argues that poor people in Spain had few routes to make money, and recounts that Finito had traveled beneath the seats of third-class carriages to avoid paying while following fairs and learning to fight. She connects the hardship of his early life with his tuberculosis, rather than treating his illness as a mark of weakness.

Fear and Courage in the Ring

Pilar remembers Finito as exceptionally afraid before a bullfight, and as a man with great fear of bulls even outside the ring. Yet, once facing a bull, he seemed to her like a lion. His public reputation was for valiance, but Pilar’s account makes clear that this reputation did not mean he lacked fear; his courage consisted in acting despite it.

Her memory gives that courage a specific form. She recalls him standing before a bull, preparing his sword and cloth, and addressing the spectators with the words, "Let's see if we can kill him like this!" The remembered moment contrasts his apprehension with the steadiness required by his profession. He could perform bravely without becoming fearless, and Pilar measures his character by that difference.

Relationship with Pilar

Pilar lived with Finito for five years and, by her account, was almost always faithful to him. She cared for him after the fights: she would wash him and cover him with a sheet, then lie beside him as he rested. He might reach out to touch her and tell her, "Thou art much woman, Pilar." She held his hand in both of hers and listened to him breathe as he fell asleep.

His fear continued into sleep. Pilar recalls feeling his hand grip hers and seeing that he was frightened; when he woke, she reassured him that nothing was wrong, and he went back to sleep. Their intimacy thus includes not only the admired public performer but also a vulnerable man whom Pilar comforted. Her recollections make care, rather than fame, the lasting measure of their bond.

Death and Significance

After Finito’s funeral, Pilar took up with Pablo, who had led picador horses in the ring and seemed to her like the bulls Finito had spent his life killing. Looking back, she concludes that neither the strength of a bull nor the courage of a bullfighter lasts. What remains, she thinks, is her own endurance—and the unanswered question of what that endurance is for.

Finito’s place in the narrative is therefore carried by memory rather than present action. Through Pilar, he becomes more than the supposedly lesser matador dismissed at the table: he is a poor and ill man, fearful in private, courageous at work, and loved through years of ordinary care. His remembered life also sharpens Pilar’s reflection on what survives loss: not physical force or public reputation, but the person who has endured.