Pilar and Finito de Palencia

Pilar and Finito de Palencia’s relationship joins affection and practical care to the hazards of his life as a matador. Her memories move between his public performances and private vulnerability: she accompanies him through illness and fear, while his grave temperament shapes the intimacy they share. After five years together, his funeral marks the end of their life as a couple and the beginning of Pilar’s later relationship with Pablo.

Meeting and Shared Life

Before the political movement, Pablo worked for a horse contractor in Zaragoza who supplied horses both to bull rings and to the army. He met Pilar when she was with Finito de Palencia, and later recalled that connection with considerable pride. Pilar’s account fills in what the brief history leaves out: she and Finito were together for five years, a period in which she remained devoted to him and cared for him after his fights.

Their life together was not presented as carefree. Finito was solemn by nature, Pilar says, and even when alone with her he rarely laughed, including at things that would ordinarily seem comic. His seriousness was not merely a public manner: it accompanied him into the private routines of their relationship, where Pilar tended to him and stayed beside him as he slept.

A Matador’s Risks and Public Image

Pilar remembers Finito facing a bull in the ring, where she sees him prepare to kill it with the measured concentration of a professional. The memory gives physical context to the dangers of his work: a horse is thrown during the encounter, and Finito stands before the bull with his sword as the animal watches the cloth. His skill and composure in public contrast with the frailty Pilar later witnesses away from the ring.

At a small banquet in Valladolid, members of the Club Finito honored him by presenting the mounted head of a bull he had killed. The head remained covered during the meal, and Pilar noticed that Finito would not look toward it. The ceremony expected him to appear friendly and merry, but she alone observed how ill he was: after being struck by a bull in his last corrida of the year at Zaragoza, he had been unconscious for a time and could not keep food down. He discreetly used three handkerchiefs, then told her quietly that he could no longer endure the banquet and thought he must leave. The tribute to his public identity thus unfolds beside the private cost of the profession that made him celebrated.

Care and Intimacy

After a fight, Pilar would wash Finito with alcohol and cover him with a sheet. She praised his performance, and he answered that he had killed the bull very well. His rare attempt at humor came when he called her a very substantial woman; afterward, he generally fell asleep while she held his hand in both of hers and listened to him breathe. The scene shows their closeness through repeated acts of tending and reassurance rather than through declarations of affection.

Finito was often frightened in his sleep. Pilar felt his hand grip hers and saw that he was sweating; when he woke, she told him there was nothing wrong, and he went back to sleep. Her care continued through these episodes, making her presence a steady counterpoint to the danger and anxiety associated with his work. The account does not explain the source of his nighttime fear, but it makes clear that Pilar recognized it and stayed with him through it.

Bereavement and Aftermath

Pilar says she was with Finito for five years and was almost never unfaithful to him. After his funeral, she took up with Pablo, who had led picador horses in the ring. Looking back, she contrasts Pablo’s former strength with the force and courage of the bulls Finito had spent his life killing, then asks herself what endures. Her answer is that she has endured, though she remains uncertain what that endurance is for.

The recollection therefore presents the relationship as both a history of loyalty and a measure of loss. Finito’s career offers public honors and moments of danger; the private record is Pilar’s sustained care, his fear, and their quiet companionship. His death ends that shared life, while Pilar’s reflection turns survival itself into an unresolved question.