"I saw them come in and just then the drunkard on the chair with me commenced to shout 'Ayee! Ayee! Ayee!' and pushed his head forward so I could not see and then he shouted 'Kill them! Kill them! Club them! Kill them!' and he pushed me aside with his two arms and I could see nothing.
"I hit my elbow into his belly and I said, 'Drunkard, whose chair is this? Let me see.'
"But he just kept shaking his hands and arms against the bars and shouting, 'Kill them! Club them! Club them! that's it. Club them! Kill them! _Cabrones!_ _Cabrones!_ _Cabrones!_'
"I hit him hard with my elbow and said, '_Cabron!_ Drunkard! Let me see.'
"Then he put both his hands on my head to push me down and so he might see better and leaned all his weight on my head and went on shouting, 'Club them! that's it. Club them!'
"'Club yourself,' I said and I hit him hard where it would hurt him and it hurt him and he dropped his hands from my head and grabbed himself and said. '_No hay derecho, mujer_. This, woman, you have no right to do.' And in that moment, looking through the bars, I saw the hail full of men flailing away with clubs and striking with flails, and poking and striking and pushing and heaving against people with the white wooden pitchforks that now were red and with their tines broken, and this was going on all over the room while Pablo sat in the big chair with his shotgun on his knees, watching, and they were shouting and clubbing and stabbing and men were screaming as horses scream in a fire. And I saw the priest with his skirts tucked up scrambling over a bench and those after him were chopping at him with the sickles and the reaping hooks and then some one had hold of his robe and there was another scream and another scream and I saw two men chopping into his back with sickles while a third man held the skirt of his robe and the Priest's arms were up and he was clinging to the back of a chair and then the chair I was standing on broke and the drunkard and I were on the pavement that smelled of spilled wine and vomit and the drunkard was shaking his finger at me and saying, '_No hay derecho, mujer, no hay derecho_. You could have done me an injury,' and the people were trampling over us to get into the hall of the _Ayuntamiento_ and all I could see was legs of people going in the doorway and the drunkard sitting there facing me and holding himself where I had hit him.
"That was the end of the killing of the fascists in our town and I was glad I did not see more of it and, but for that drunkard, I would have seen it all. So he served some good because in the _Ayuntamiento_ it was a thing one is sorry to have seen.
"But the other drunkard was something rarer still. As we got up after the breaking of the chair, and the people were still crowding into the _Ayuntamiento_, I saw this drunkard of the square with his red-and-black scarf, again pouring something over Don Anastasio. He was shaking his head from side to side and it was very hard for him to sit up, but he was pouring and lighting matches and then pouring and lighting matches and I walked over to him and said, 'What are you doing, shameless?'
"'_Nada, mujer, nada_,' he said. 'Let me alone.'
"And perhaps because I was standing there so that my legs made a shelter from the wind, the match caught and a blue flame began to run up the shoulder of the coat of Don Anastasio and onto the back of his neck and the drunkard put his head up and shouted in a huge voice, 'They're burning the dead! They're burning the dead!'
"'Who?' somebody said.
"'Where?' shouted some one else.
"'Here,' bellowed the drunkard. 'Exactly here!'
"Then some one hit the drunkard a great blow alongside the head with a flail and he fell back, and lying on the ground, he looked up at the man who had hit him and then shut his eyes and crossed his hands on his chest, and lay there beside Don Anastasio as though he were asleep. The man did not hit him again and he lay there and he was still there when they picked up Don Anastasio and put him with the others in the cart that hauled them all over to the cliff where they were thrown over that evening with the others after there had been a cleaning up in the _Ayuntamiento_. It would have been better for the town if they had thrown over twenty or thirty of the drunkards, especially those of the red-and-black scarves, and if we ever have another revolution I believe they should be destroyed at the start. But then we did not know this. But in the next days we were to learn.
"But that night we did not know what was to come. After the slaying in the _Ayuntamiento_ there was no more killing but we could not have a meeting that night because there were too many drunkards. It was impossible to obtain order and so the meeting was postponed until the next day.
"That night I slept with Pablo. I should not say this to you, _guapa_, but on the other hand, it is good for you to know everything and at least what I tell you is true. Listen to this, _Ingles_. It is very curious.
"As I say, that night we ate and it was very curious. It was as after a storm or a flood or a battle and every one was tired and no one spoke much. I, myself, felt hollow and not well and I was full of shame and a sense of wrongdoing and I had a great feeling of oppression and of bad to come, as this morning after the planes. And certainly, bad came within three days.
"Pablo, when we ate, spoke little.
"'Did you like it, Pilar?' he asked finally with his mouth full of roast young goat. We were eating at the inn from where the buses leave and the room was crowded and people were singing and there was difficulty serving.
"'No,' I said. 'Except for Don Faustino, I did not like it.'
"'I liked it,' he said.
"'All of it?' I asked him.
"'All of it,' he said and cut himself a big piece of bread with his knife and commenced to mop up gravy with it. 'All of it, except the priest.'
"'You didn't like it about the priest?' because I knew he hated priests even worse than he hated fascists.
"'He was a disillusionment to me,' Pablo said sadly.
"So many people were singing that we had to almost shout to hear one another.
"'Why?'
"'He died very badly,' Pablo said. 'He had very little dignity.'
"'How did you want him to have dignity when he was being chased by the mob?' I said. 'I thought he had much dignity all the time before. All the dignity that one could have.'
"'Yes,' Pablo said. 'But in the last minute he was frightened.'
"'Who wouldn't be?' I said. 'Did you see what they were chasing him with?'
"'Why would I not see?' Pablo said. 'But I find he died badly.'
"'In such circumstances any one dies badly,' I told him. 'What do you want for your money? Everything that happened in the _Ayuntamiento_ was scabrous.'
"'Yes,' said Pablo. 'There was little organization. But a priest. He has an example to set.'
"'I thought you hated priests.'
"'Yes,' said Pablo and cut some more bread. 'But a _Spanish_ priest. A _Spanish_ priest should die very well.'
"'I think he died well enough,' I said. 'Being deprived of all formality.'
"'No,' Pablo said. 'To me he was a great disillusionment. All day I had waited for the death of the priest. I had thought he would be the last to enter the lines. I awaited it with great anticipation. I expected something of a culmination. I had never seen a priest die.'
"'There is time,' I said to him sarcastically. 'Only today did the movement start.'
"'No,' he said. 'I am disillusioned.'
"'Now,' I said. 'I suppose you will lose your faith.'
"'You do not understand, Pilai' he said. 'He was a _Spanish_ priest.'
"'What people the Spaniards are,' I said to him. And what a people they are for pride, eh, _Ingles?_ What a people."
"We must get on," Robert Jordan said. He looked at the sun. "It's nearly noon."
"Yes," Pilar said. "We will go now. But let me tell you about Pablo. That night he said to me, 'Pilar, tonight we will do nothing.'
"'Good,' I told him. 'That pleases me.'
"'I think it would be bad taste after the killing of so many people.'
"'_Que va_,' I told him. 'What a saint you are. You think I lived years with bullfighters not to know how they are after the Corrida?'
"'Is it true, Pilar?' he asked me.
"'When did I lie to you?' I told him.
"'It is true, Pilar, I am a finished man this night. You do not reproach me?'
"'No, _hombre_,' I said to him. 'But don't kill people every day, Pablo.'
"And he slept that night like a baby and I woke him in the morning at daylight but I could not sleep that night and I got up and sat in a chair and looked out of the window and I could see the square in the moonlight where the lines had been and across the square the trees shining in the moonlight, and the darkness of their shadows, and the benches bright too in the moonlight, and the scattered bottles shining, and beyond the edge of the cliff where they had all been thrown. And there was no sound but the splashing of the water in the fountain and I sat there and I thought we have begun badly.
"The window was open and up the square from the Fonda I could hear a woman crying. I went out on the balcony standing there in my bare feet on the iron and the moon shone on the faces of all the buildings of the square and the crying was coming from the balcony of the house of Don Guillermo. It was his wife and she was on the balcony kneeling and crying.
"Then I went back inside the room and I sat there and I did not wish to think for that was the worst day of my life until one other day."
"What was the other?" Maria asked.
"Three days later when the fascists took the town."
"Do not tell me about it," said Maria. "I do not want to hear it. This is enough. This was too much."
"I told you that you should not have listened," Pilar said. "See. I did not want you to hear it. Now you will have bad dreams."
"No," said Maria. "But I do not want to hear more."
"I wish you would tell me of it sometime," Robert Jordan said.
"I will," Pilar said. "But it is bad for Maria."
"I don't want to hear it," Maria said pitifully. "Please, Pilar. And do not tell it if I am there, for I might listen in spite of myself."
Her lips were working and Robert Jordan thought she would cry.
"Please, Pilar, do not tell it."
"Do not worry, little cropped head," Pilar said. "Do not worry. But I will tell the _Ingles_ sometime."
"But I want to be there when he is there," Maria said. "Oh, Pilar, do not tell it at all."
"I will tell it when thou art working."
"No. No. Please. Let us not tell it at all," Maria said.
"It is only fair to tell it since I have told what we did," Pilar said. "But you shall never hear it."
"Are there no pleasant things to speak of?" Maria said. "Do we have to talk always of horrors?"
"This afternoon," Pilar said, "thou and _Ingles_. The two of you can speak of what you wish."
"Then that the afternoon should come," Maria said. "That it should come flying."
"It will come," Pilar told her. "It will come flying and go the same way and tomorrow will fly, too."
"This afternoon," Maria said. "This afternoon. That this afternoon should come."
11
As they came up, still deep in the shadow of the pines, after dropping down from the high meadow into the wooden valley and climbing up it on a trail that paralleled the stream and then left it to gain, steeply, the top of a rim-rock formation, a man with a carbine stepped out from behind a tree.
"Halt," he said. Then, "_Hola_, Pilar. Who is this with thee?"
"An _Ingles_," Pilar said. "But with a Christian name--Roberto. And what an obscenity of steepness it is to arrive here."
"_Salud, Camarada_," the guard said to Robert Jordan and put out his hand. "Are you well?"
"Yes," said Robert Jordan. "And thee?"
"Equally," the guard said. He was very young, with a light build, thin, rather hawk-nosed face, high cheekbones and gray eyes. He wore no hat, his hair was black and shaggy and his handclasp was strong and friendly. His eyes were friendly too.
"Hello, Maria," he said to the girl. "You did not tire yourself?"
"_Que va_, Joaquin," the girl said. "We have sat and talked more than we have walked."
"Are you the dynamiter?" Joaquin asked. "We have heard you were here."
"We passed the night at Pablo's," Robert Jordan said. "Yes, I am the dynamiter."
"We are glad to see you," Joaquin said. "Is it for a train?"
"Were you at the last train?" Robert Jordan asked and smiled.
"Was I not," Joaquin said. "That's where we got this," he grinned at Maria. "You are pretty now," he said to Maria. "Have they told thee how pretty?"
"Shut up, Joaquin, and thank you very much," Maria said. "You'd be pretty with a haircut."
"I carried thee," Joaquin told the girl. "I carried thee over my shoulder."
"As did many others," Pilar said in the deep voice. "Who didn't carry her? Where is the old man?"
"At the camp."
"Where was he last night?"
"In Segovia."
"Did he bring news?"
"Yes," Joaquin said, "there is news."
"Good or bad?"
"I believe bad."
"Did you see the planes?"
