Belmonte had been one of the greatest bullfighters of his time—at least if you ask Jake Barnes, protagonist of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Before his retirement, Belmonte had killed over a thousand bulls, each time dancing with, around, and so close to the animal that the mesmerized audience half-expected it to be his last.
But alas, even greatness eventually fades, as Belmonte quickly discovers when he makes his grand return during Jake’s latest visit to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona. “When he retired the legend grew up about how his bull-fighting had been,” Jake explains, “and when he came out of retirement the public were disappointed because no real man could work as close to the bulls as Belmonte was supposed to have done, not, of course, even Belmonte.”
Now older and more cautious, Belmonte had picked out his bulls in advance. He didn’t want to get hurt, even risk as much. In the ring, however, he regretted his decision. “Belmonte was no longer well enough,” Jake comments. “He no longer had his greatest moments in the bull-ring. He was not sure that there were any great moments,” but every now and then, his former brilliance would shine through.
“He had flashes of the old greatness with his bulls, but they were not of value because he had discounted them in advance when he had picked the bulls out for their safety,” Jake says. A sudden jump here. A quick dodge there. Belmonte’s old glory would glare like a coin in the sun, but then he remembered the bull in front of him was never a real contender to begin with, and it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“So he had two small, manageable bulls without much horns,” Jake tells us, “and when he felt the greatness again coming, just a little of it through the pain that was always with him, it had been discounted and sold in advance, and it did not give him a good feeling. It was the greatness, but it did not make bull-fighting wonderful to him any more.”
In the end, Belmonte leaves the arena defeated—victorious on the sand but booed away by the audience. If there was greatness left for him out in the world, bullfighting was not where he would find it.
In the book, we don’t discover what Belmonte does next. In real life, it pays to avoid his fate. Don’t cling to your old medals. You’re not a one-trick pony. When flow and form elude you in what used to be familiar waters, don’t be afraid to seek unknown shores. Find new greatness, and never let a too splendid past keep you from a meaningful future.