"Hello, little rabbit," he said and kissed her on the mouth. She held him tight to her and looked in his face and said, "Hello. Oh, hello. Hello."
Fernando, still sitting at the table smoking a cigarette, stood up, shook his head and walked out, picking up his carbine from where it leaned against the wall.
"It is very unformal," he said to Pilar. "And I do not like it. You should take care of the girl."
"I am," said Pilar. "That comrade is her _novio_."
"Oh," said Fernando. "In that case, since they are engaged, I encounter it to be perfectly normal."
"I am pleased," the woman said.
"Equally," Fernando agreed gravely. "_Salud_, Pilar."
"Where are you going?"
"To the upper post to relieve Primitivo."
"Where the hell are you going?" Agustin asked the grave little man as he came up.
"To my duty," Fernando said with dignity.
"Thy duty," said Agustin mockingly. "I besmirch the milk of thy duty." Then turning to the woman, "Where the un-nameable is this vileness that I am to guard?"
"In the cave," Pilar said. "In two sacks. And I am tired of thy obscenity."
"I obscenity in the milk of thy tiredness," Agustin said.
"Then go and befoul thyself," Pilar said to him without heat.
"Thy mother," Agustin replied.
"Thou never had one," Pilar told him, the insults having reached the ultimate formalism in Spanish in which the acts are never stated but only implied.
"What are they doing in there?" Agustin now asked confidentially.
"Nothing," Pilar told him. "_Nada_. We are, after all, in the spring, animal."
"Animal," said Agustin, relishing the word. "Animal. And thou. Daughter of the great whore of whores. I befoul myself in the milk of the springtime."
Pilar slapped him on the shoulder.
"You," she said, and laughed that booming laugh. "You lack variety in your cursing. But you have force. Did you see the planes?"
"I un-name in the milk of their motors," Agustin said, nodding his head and biting his lower lip.
"That's something," Pilar said. "That is really something. But really difficult of execution."
"At that altitude, yes," Agustin grinned. "_Desde luego_. But it is better to joke."
"Yes," the woman of Pablo said. "It is much better to joke, and you are a good man and you joke with force."
"Listen, Pilar," Agustin said seriously. "Something is preparing. It is not true?"
"How does it seem to you?"
"Of a foulness that cannot be worse. Those were many planes, woman. Many planes."
"And thou hast caught fear from them like all the others?"
"_Que va_," said Agustin. "What do you think they are preparing?"
"Look," Pilar said. "From this boy coming for the bridges obviously the Republic is preparing an offensive. From these planes obviously the Fascists are preparing to meet it. But why show the planes?"
"In this war are many foolish things," Agustin said. "In this war there is an idiocy without bounds."
"Clearly," said Pilar. "Otherwise we could not be here."
"Yes," said Agustin. "We swim within the idiocy for a year now. But Pablo is a man of much understanding. Pablo is very wily."
"Why do you say this?"
"I say it."
"But you must understand," Pilar explained. "It is now too late to be saved by wiliness and he has lost the other."
"I understand," said Agustin. "I know we must go. And since we must win to survive ultimately, it is necessary that the bridges must be blown. But Pablo, for the coward that he now is, is very smart."
"I, too, am smart."
"No, Pilar," Agustin said. "You are not smart. You are brave. You are loyal. You have decision. You have intuition. Much decision and much heart. But you are not smart."
"You believe that?" the woman asked thoughtfully.
"Yes, Pilar."
"The boy is smart," the woman said. "Smart and cold. Very cold in the head."
"Yes," Agustin said. "He must know his business or they would not have him doing this. But I do not know that he is smart. Pablo I _know_ is smart."
"But rendered useless by his fear and his disinclination to action."
"But still smart."
"And what do you say?"
"Nothing. I try to consider it intelligently. In this moment we need to act with intelligence. After the bridge we must leave at once. All must be prepared. We must know for where we are leaving and how."
"Naturally."
"For this--Pablo. It must be done smartly."
"I have no confidence in Pablo."
"In this, yes."
"No. You do not know how far he is ruined."
"_Pero es muy vivo_. He is very smart. And if we do not do this smartly we are obscenitied."
"I will think about it," Pilar said. "I have the day to think about it."
"For the bridges; the boy," Agustin said. "This he must know. Look at the fine manner in which the other organized the train."
"Yes," Pilar said. "It was really he who planned all."
"You for energy and resolution," Agustin said. "But Pablo for the moving. Pablo for the retreat. Force him now to study it."
"You are a man of intelligence."
"Intelligent, yes," Agustin said. "But _sin picardia_. Pablo for that."
"With his fear and all?"
"With his fear and all."
"And what do you think of the bridges?"
"It is necessary. That I know. Two things we must do. We must leave here and we must win. The bridges are necessary if we are to Win."
"If Pablo is so smart, why does he not see that?"
"He wants things as they are for his own weakness. He wants tO stay in the eddy of his own weakness. But the river is rising. Forced to a change, he will be smart in the change. _Es muy vivo_."
"It is good that the boy did not kill him."
"_Que va_. The gypsy wanted me to kill him last night. The gypsy is an animal."
"You're an animal, too," she said. "But intelligent."
"We are both intelligent," Agustin said. "But the talent is Pablo!"
"But difficult to put up with. You do not know how ruined."
"Yes. But a talent. Look, Pilar. To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material."
"I will think it over," she said. "We must start now. We are late." Then, raising her voice, "English!" she called. "_Ingles!_ Come on! Let us go."
10
"Let us rest," Pilar said to Robert Jordan. "Sit down here, Maria, and let us rest."
"We should continue," Robert Jordan said. "Rest when we get there. I must see this man."
"You will see him," the woman told him. "There is no hurry. Sit down here, Maria."
"Come on," Robert Jordan said. "Rest at the top."
"I rest now," the woman said, and sat down by the stream. The girl sat by her in the heather, the sun shining on her hair. Only Robert Jordan stood looking across the high mountain meadow with the trout brook running through it. There was heather growing where he stood. There were gray boulders rising from the yellow bracken that replaced the heather in the lower part of the meadow and below was the dark line of the pines.
"How far is it to El Sordo's?" he asked.
"Not far," the woman said. "It is across this open country, down into the next valley and above the timber at the head of the stream. Sit thee down and forget thy seriousness."
"I want to see him and get it over with."
"I want to bathe my feet," the woman said and, taking off her rope-soled shoes and pulling off a heavy wool stocking, she put her right foot into the stream. "My God, it's cold."
"We should have taken horses," Robert Jordan told her.
"This is good for me," the woman said. "This is what I have been missing. What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, except that I am in a hurry."
"Then calm yourself. There is much time. What a day it is and how I am contented not to be in pine trees. You cannot imagine how one can tire of pine trees. Aren't you tired of the pines, _guapa?_"
"I like them," the girl said.
"What can you like about them?"
"I like the odor and the feel of the needles under foot. I like the wind in the high trees and the creaking they make against each other."
"You like anything," Pilar said. "You are a gift to any man if you could cook a little better. But the pine tree makes a forest of boredom. Thou hast never known a forest of beech, nor of oak, nor of chestnut. Those are forests. In such forests each tree differs and there is character and beauty. A forest of pine trees is boredom. What do you say, Ingles?"
"I like the pines, too."
"_Pero, venga_," Pilar said. "Two of you. So do I like the pines, but we have been too long in these pines. Also I am tired of the mountains. In mountains there are only two directions. Down and up and down leads only to the road and the towns of the Fascists."
"Do you ever go to Segovia?"
"_Que va_. With this face? This is a face that is known. How would you like to be ugly, beautiful one?" she said to Maria.
"Thou art not ugly."
"_Vamos_, I'm not ugly. I was born ugly. All my life I have been ugly. You, _Ingles_, who know nothing about women. Do you know how an ugly woman feels? Do you know what it is to be ugly all your life and inside to feel that you are beautiful? It is very rare," she put the other foot in the stream, then removed it. "God, it's cold. Look at the water wagtail," she said and pointed to the gray ball of a bird that was bobbing up and down on a stone up the stream. "Those are no good for anything. Neither to sing nor to eat. Only to jerk their tails up and down. Give me a cigarette, _Ingles_," she said and taking it, lit it from a flint and steel lighter in the pocket of her skirt. She puffed on the cigarette and looked at Maria and Robert Jordan.
"Life is very curious," she said, and blew smoke from her nostrils. "I would have made a good man, but I am all woman and all ugly. Yet many men have loved me and I have loved many men. It is curious. Listen, _Ingles_, this is interesting. Look at me, as ugly as I am. Look closely, _Ingles_."
"Thou art not ugly."
"_Que no?_ Don't lie to me. Or," she laughed the deep laugh. "Has it begun to work with thee? No. That is a joke. No. Look at the ugliness. Yet one has a feeling within one that blinds a man while he loves you. You, with that feeling, blind him, and blind yourself. Then one day, for no reason, he sees you ugly as you really are and he is not blind any more and then you see yourself as ugly as he sees you and you lose your man and your feeling. Do you understand, _guapa?_" She patted the girl on the shoulder.
"No," said Maria. "Because thou art not ugly."
"Try to use thy head and not thy heart, and listen," Pilar said. "I am telling you things of much interest. Does it not interest you, _Ingles?_"
"Yes. But we should go."
"_Que va_, go. I am very well here. Then," she went on, addressing herself to Robert Jordan now as though she were speaking to a classroom; almost as though she were lecturing. "After a while, when you are as ugly as I am, as ugly as women can be, then, as I say, after a while the feeling, the idiotic feeling that you are beautiful, grows slowly in one again. It grows like a cabbage. And then, when the feeling is grown, another man sees you and thinks you are beautiful and it is all to do over. Now I think I am past it, but it still might come. You are lucky, _guapa_, that you are not ugly."
"But I _am_ ugly," Maria insisted.
"Ask _him_," said Pilar. "And don't put thy feet in the stream because it will freeze them."
"If Roberto says we should go, I think we should go," Maria said.
"Listen to you," Pilar said. "I have as much at stake in this as thy Roberto and I say that we are well off resting here by the stream and that there is much time. Furthermore, I like to talk. It is the only civilized thing we have. How otherwise can we divert ourselves? Does what I say not hold interest for you, _Ingles?_"
"You speak very well. But there are other things that interest me more than talk of beauty or lack of beauty."
"Then let us talk of what interests thee."
"Where were you at the start of the movement?"
"In my town."
"Avila?"
"_Que va_, Avila."
"Pablo said he was from Avila."
"He lies. He wanted to take a big city for his town. It was this town," and she named a town.
"And what happened?"
"Much," the woman said. "Much. And all of it ugly. Even that which was glorious."
"Tell me about it," Robert Jordan said.
"It is brutal," the woman said. "I do not like to tell it before the girl."
"Tell it," said Robert Jordan. "And if it is not for her, that she should not listen."
"I can hear it," Maria said. She put her hand on Robert Jordan's. "There is nothing that I cannot hear."
"It isn't whether you can hear it," Pilar said. "It is whether I should tell it to thee and make thee bad dreams."
"I will not get bad dreams from a story," Maria told her. "You think after all that has happened with us I should get bad dreams from a story?"
"Maybe it will give the _Ingles_ bad dreams."
"Try it and see."
"No, _Ingles_, I am not joking. Didst thou see the start of the movement in any small town?"
