“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, Inglés ?”

“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?”

“ Qué 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, Inglés , 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, Inglés ,” she said and taking it, lit it from a flint and steel lighter in the pocket of her shirt. 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, Inglés , this is interesting. Look at me, as ugly as I am. Look closely, Inglés .”

“Thou art not ugly.”

“ Qué 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, Inglés ?”

“Yes. But we should go.”

“ Qué 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, Inglés ?”

“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?”

“ Qué 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 Inglés bad dreams.”

“Try it and see.”

“No, Inglés , I am not joking. Didst thou see the start of the movement in any small town?”

“No,” Robert Jordan said.

“Then thou hast seen nothing. Thou hast seen the ruin that now is Pablo, but you should have seen Pablo on that day.”

“Tell it.”

“Nay. I do not want to.”

“Tell it.”

“All right, then. I will tell it truly as it was. But thee, guapa , if it reaches a point that it molests thee, tell me.”

“I will not listen to it if it molests me,” Maria told her. “It cannot be worse than many things.”

“I believe it can,” the woman said. “Give me another cigarette, Inglés , and vamonos .”

The girl leaned back against the heather on the bank of the stream and Robert Jordan stretched himself out, his shoulders against the ground and his head against a clump of the heather. He reached out and found Maria’s hand and held it in his, rubbing their two hands against the heather until she opened her hand and laid it flat on top of his as they listened.

“It was early in the morning when the civiles surrendered at the barracks,” Pilar began.

“You had assaulted the barracks?” Robert Jordan asked.

“Pablo had surrounded it in the dark, cut the telephone wires, placed dynamite under one wall and called on the guardia civil to surrender. They would not. And at daylight he blew the wall open. There was fighting. Two civiles were killed. Four were wounded and four surrendered.

“We all lay on roofs and on the ground and at the edge of walls and of buildings in the early morning light and the dust cloud of the explosion had not yet settled, for it rose high in the air and there was no wind to carry it, and all of us were firing into the broken side of the building, loading and firing into the smoke, and from within there was still the flashing of rifles and then there was a shout from in the smoke not to fire more, and out came the four civiles with their hands up. A big part of the roof had fallen in and the wall was gone and they came out to surrender.

“ ‘Are there more inside?’ Pablo shouted.

“ ‘There are wounded.’

“ ‘Guard these,’ Pablo said to four who had come up from where we were firing. ‘Stand there. Against the wall,’ he told the civiles . The four civiles stood against the wall, dirty, dusty, smoke-grimed, with the four who were guarding them pointing their guns at them and Pablo and the others went in to finish the wounded.

“After they had done this and there was no longer any noise of the wounded, neither groaning, nor crying out, nor the noise of shooting in the barracks, Pablo and the others came out and Pablo had his shotgun slung over his back and was carrying in his hand a Mauser pistol.

“ ‘Look, Pilar,’ he said. ‘This was in the hand of the officer who killed himself. Never have I fired a pistol. You,’ he said to one of the guards, ‘show me how it works. No. Don’t show me. Tell me.’

“The four civiles had stood against the wall, sweating and saying nothing while the shooting had gone on inside the barracks. They were all tall men with the faces of guardias civiles , which is the same model of face as mine is. Except that their faces were covered with the small stubble of this their last morning of not yet being shaved and they stood there against the wall and said nothing.

“ ‘You,’ said Pablo to the one who stood nearest him. ‘Tell me how it works.’

“ ‘Pull the small lever down,’ the man said in a very dry voice. ‘Pull the receiver back and let it snap forward.’

“ ‘What is the receiver?’ asked Pablo, and he looked at the four civiles . ‘What is the receiver?’

“ ‘The block on top of the action.’

“Pablo pulled it back, but it stuck. ‘What now?’ he said. ‘It is jammed. You have lied to me.’

“ ‘Pull it farther back and let it snap lightly forward,’ the civil said, and I have never heard such a tone of voice. It was grayer than a morning without sunrise.

“Pablo pulled and let go as the man had told him and the block snapped forward into place and the pistol was cocked with the hammer back. It is an ugly pistol, small in the round handle, large and flat in the barrel, and unwieldy. All this time the civiles had been watching him and they had said nothing.

“ ‘What are you going to do with us?’ one asked him.

“ ‘Shoot thee,’ Pablo said.

“ ‘When?’ the man asked in the same gray voice.

“ ‘Now,’ said Pablo.

“ ‘Where?’ asked the man.

“ ‘Here,’ said Pablo. ‘Here. Now. Here and now. Have you anything to say?’

“ ‘ Nada ,’ said the civil . ‘Nothing. But it is an ugly thing.’

“ ‘And you are an ugly thing.’ Pablo said. ‘You murderer of peasants. You who would shoot your own mother.’

“ ‘I have never killed any one,’ the civil said. ‘And do not speak of my mother.’

“ ‘Show us how to die. You, who have always done the killing.’

“ ‘There is no necessity to insult us,’ another civil said. ‘And we know how to die.’

“ ‘Kneel down against the wall with your heads against the wall,’ Pablo told them. The civiles looked at one another.

“ ‘Kneel, I say,’ Pablo said. ‘Get down and kneel.’

“ ‘How does it seem to you, Paco?’ one civil said to the tallest, who had spoken with Pablo about the pistol. He wore a corporal’s stripes on his sleeves and was sweating very much although the early morning was still cool.

“ ‘It is as well to kneel,’ he answered. ‘It is of no importance.’

“ ‘It is closer to the earth,’ the first one who had spoken said, trying to make a joke, but they were all too grave for a joke and no one smiled.

“ ‘Then let us kneel,’ the first civil said, and the four knelt, looking very awkward with their heads against the wall and their hands by their sides, and Pablo passed behind them and shot each in turn in the back of the head with the pistol, going from one to another and putting the barrel of the pistol against the back of their heads, each man slipping down as he fired. I can hear the pistol still, sharp and yet muffled, and see the barrel jerk and the head of the man drop forward. One held his head still when the pistol touched it. One pushed his forward and pressed his forehead against the stone. One shivered in his whole body and his head was shaking. Only one put his hands in front of his eyes, and he was the last one, and the four bodies were slumped against the wall when Pablo turned away from them and came toward us with the pistol still in his hand.

“ ‘Hold this for me, Pilar,’ he said. ‘I do not know how to put down the hammer,’ and he handed me the pistol and stood there looking at the four guards as they lay against the wall of the barracks. All those who were with us stood there too, looking at them, and no one said anything.

“We had won the town and it was still early in the morning and no one had eaten nor had any one drunk coffee and we looked at each other and we were all powdered with dust from the blowing up of the barracks, as powdered as men are at a threshing, and I stood holding the pistol and it was heavy in my hand and I felt weak in the stomach when I looked at the guards dead there against the wall; they all as gray and as dusty as we were, but each one was now moistening with his blood the dry dirt by the wall where they lay. And as we stood there the sun rose over the far hills and shone now on the road where we stood and on the white wall of the barracks and the dust in the air was golden in that first sun and the peasant who was beside me looked at the wall of the barracks and what lay there and then looked at us and then at the sun and said, ‘ Vaya , a day that commences.’

“ ‘Now let us go and get coffee,’ I said.

“ ‘Good, Pilar, good,’ he said. And we went up into the town to the Plaza, and those were the last people who were shot in the village.”

“What happened to the others?” Robert Jordan asked. “Were there no other fascists in the village?”

“ Qué va , were there no other fascists? There were more than twenty. But none was shot.”

“What was done?”

“Pablo had them beaten to death with flails and thrown from the top of the cliff into the river.”

“All twenty?”

“I will tell you. It is not so simple. And in my life never do I wish to see such a scene as the flailing to death in the plaza on the top of the cliff above the river.

“The town is built on the high bank above the river and there is a square there with a fountain and there are benches and there are big trees that give a shade for the benches. The balconies of the houses look out on the plaza. Six streets enter on the plaza and there is an arcade from the houses that goes around the plaza so that one can walk in the shade of the arcade when the sun is hot. On three sides of the plaza is the arcade and on the fourth side is the walk shaded by the trees beside the edge of the cliff with, far below, the river. It is three hundred feet down to the river.

“Pablo organized it all as he did the attack on the barracks. First he had the entrances to the streets blocked off with carts as though to organize the plaza for a capea . For an amateur bull fight. The fascists were all held in the Ayuntamiento , the city hall, which was the largest building on one side of the plaza. It was there the clock was set in the wall and it was in the buildings under the arcade that the club of the fascists was. And under the arcade on the sidewalk in front of their club was where they had their chairs and tables for their club. It was there, before the movement, that they were accustomed to take their apéritifs. The chairs and the tables were of wicker. It looked like a café but was more elegant.”

“But was there no fighting to take them?”

“Pablo had them seized in the night before he assaulted the barracks. But he had already surrounded the barracks. They were all seized in their homes at the same hour the attack started. That was intelligent. Pablo is an organizer. Otherwise he would have had people attacking him at his flanks and at his rear while he was assaulting the barracks of the guardia civil .

“Pablo is very intelligent but very brutal. He had this of the village well planned and well ordered. Listen. After the assault was successful, and the last four guards had surrendered, and he had shot them against the wall, and we had drunk coffee at the café that always opened earliest in the morning by the corner from which the early bus left, he proceeded to the organization of the plaza. Carts were piled exactly as for a capea except that the side toward the river was not enclosed. That was left open. Then Pablo ordered the priest to confess the fascists and give them the necessary sacraments.”

“Where was this done?”

“In the Ayuntamiento , as I said. There was a great crowd outside and while this was going on inside with the priest, there was some levity outside and shouting of obscenities, but most of the people were very serious and respectful. Those who made jokes were those who were already drunk from the celebration of the taking of the barracks and there were useless characters who would have been drunk at any time.

“While the priest was engaged in these duties, Pablo organized those in the plaza into two lines.

“He placed them in two lines as you would place men for a rope pulling contest, or as they stand in a city to watch the ending of a bicycle road race with just room for the cyclists to pass between, or as men stood to allow the passage of a holy image in a procession. Two meters was left between the lines and they extended from the door of the Ayuntamiento clear across the plaza to the edge of the cliff. So that, from the doorway of the Ayuntamiento , looking across the plaza, one coming out would see two solid lines of people waiting.

“They were armed with flails such as are used to beat out the grain and they were a good flail’s length apart. All did not have flails, as enough flails could not be obtained. But most had flails obtained from the store of Don Guillermo Martín, who was a fascist and sold all sorts of agricultural implements. And those who did not have flails had heavy herdsman’s clubs, or ox-goads, and some had wooden pitchforks; those with wooden tines that are used to fork the chaff and straw into the air after the flailing. Some had sickles and reaping hooks but these Pablo placed at the far end where the lines reached the edge of the cliff.

“These lines were quiet and it was a clear day, as today is clear, and there were clouds high in the sky, as there are now, and the plaza was not yet dusty for there had been a heavy dew in the night, and the trees cast a shade over the men in the lines and you could hear the water running from the brass pipe in the mouth of the lion and falling into the bowl of the fountain where the women bring the water jars to fill them.

“Only near the Ayuntamiento , where the priest was complying with his duties with the fascists, was there any ribaldry, and that came from those worthless ones who, as I said, were already drunk and were crowded around the windows shouting obscenities and jokes in bad taste in through the iron bars of the windows. Most of the men in the lines were waiting quietly and I heard one say to another, ‘Will there be women?’

“And another said, ‘I hope to Christ, no.’

“Then one said, ‘Here is the woman of Pablo. Listen, Pilar. Will there be women?’

“I looked at him and he was a peasant dressed in his Sunday jacket and sweating heavily and I said, ‘No, Joaquín. There are no women. We are not killing the women. Why should we kill their women?’

“And he said, ‘Thanks be to Christ, there are no women and when does it start?’

“And I said, ‘As soon as the priest finishes.’

“ ‘And the priest?’

“ ‘I don’t know,’ I told him and I saw his face working and the sweat coming down on his forehead. ‘I have never killed a man,’ he said.

“ ‘Then you will learn,’ the peasant next to him said. ‘But I do not think one blow with this will kill a man,’ and he held his flail in both hands and looked at it with doubt.

“ ‘That is the beauty of it,’ another peasant said. ‘There must be many blows.’

“ ‘ They have taken Valladolid. They have Avila,’ some one said. ‘I heard that before we came into town.’

“ ‘ They will never take this town. This town is ours. We have struck ahead of them,’ I said, ‘Pablo is not one to wait for them to strike.’

“ ‘Pablo is able,’ another said. ‘But in this finishing off of the civiles he was egoistic. Don’t you think so, Pilar?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But now all are participating in this.’

“ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is well organized. But why do we not hear more news of the movement?’

“ ‘Pablo cut the telephone wires before the assault on the barracks. They are not yet repaired.’

“ ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It is for this we hear nothing. I had my news from the road mender’s station early this morning.’

“ ‘Why is this done thus, Pilar?’ he said to me.

“ ‘To save bullets,’ I said. ‘And that each man should have his share in the responsibility.’

“ ‘That it should start then. That it should start.’ And I looked at him and saw that he was crying.

“ ‘Why are you crying, Joaquín?’ I asked him. ‘This is not to cry about.’

“ ‘I cannot help it, Pilar,’ he said. ‘I have never killed any one.’

“If you have not seen the day of revolution in a small town where all know all in the town and always have known all, you have seen nothing. And on this day most of the men in the double line across the plaza wore the clothes in which they worked in the fields, having come into town hurriedly, but some, not knowing how one should dress for the first day of a movement, wore their clothes for Sundays or holidays, and these, seeing that the others, including those who had attacked the barracks, wore their oldest clothes, were ashamed of being wrongly dressed. But they did not like to take off their jackets for fear of losing them, or that they might be stolen by the worthless ones, and so they stood, sweating in the sun and waiting for it to commence.

“Then the wind rose and the dust was now dry in the plaza for the men walking and standing and shuffling had loosened it and it commenced to blow and a man in a dark blue Sunday jacket shouted ‘Agua! Agua!’ and the caretaker of the plaza, whose duty it was to sprinkle the plaza each morning with a hose, came and turned the hose on and commenced to lay the dust at the edge of the plaza, and then toward the center. Then the two lines fell back and let him lay the dust over the center of the plaza; the hose sweeping in wide arcs and the water glistening in the sun and the men leaning on their flails or the clubs or the white wood pitchforks and watching the sweep of the stream of water. And then, when the plaza was nicely moistened and the dust settled, the lines formed up again and a peasant shouted, ‘When do we get the first fascist? When does the first one come out of the box?’

“ ‘Soon,’ Pablo shouted from the door of the Ayuntamiento . ‘Soon the first one comes out.’ His voice was hoarse from shouting in the assault and from the smoke of the barracks.

“ ‘What’s the delay?’ some one asked.

“ ‘They’re still occupied with their sins,’ Pablo shouted.

“ ‘Clearly, there are twenty of them,’ a man said.

“ ‘More,’ said another.

“ ‘Among twenty there are many sins to recount.’

“ ‘Yes, but I think it’s a trick to gain time. Surely facing such an emergency one could not remember one’s sins except for the biggest.’

“ ‘Then have patience. For with more than twenty of them there are enough of the biggest sins to take some time.’

“ ‘I have patience,’ said the other. ‘But it is better to get it over with. Both for them and for us. It is July and there is much work. We have harvested but we have not threshed. We are not yet in the time of fairs and festivals.’

“ ‘But this will be a fair and festival today,’ another said. ‘The Fair of Liberty and from this day, when these are extinguished, the town and the land are ours.’

“ ‘We thresh fascists today,’ said one, ‘and out of the chaff comes the freedom of this pueblo.’

“ ‘We must administer it well to deserve it,’ said another. ‘Pilar,’ he said to me, ‘when do we have a meeting for organization?’

“ ‘Immediately after this is completed,’ I told him. ‘In the same building of the Ayuntamiento .’

“I was wearing one of the three-cornered patent leather hats of the guardia civil as a joke and I had put the hammer down on the pistol, holding it with my thumb to lower it as I pulled on the trigger as seemed natural, and the pistol was held in a rope I had around my waist, the long barrel stuck under the rope. And when I put it on the joke seemed very good to me, although afterwards I wished I had taken the holster of the pistol instead of the hat. But one of the men in the line said to me, ‘Pilar, daughter. It seems to me bad taste for thee to wear that hat. Now we have finished with such things as the guardia civil .’

“ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I will take it off.’ And I did.

“ ‘Give it to me,’ he said. ‘It should be destroyed.’

“And as we were at the far end of the line where the walk runs along the cliff by the river, he took the hat in his hand and sailed it off over the cliff with the motion a herdsman makes throwing a stone underhand at the bulls to herd them. The hat sailed far out into space and we could see it smaller and smaller, the patent leather shining in the clear air, sailing down to the river. I looked back over the square and at all the windows and all the balconies there were people crowded and there was the double line of men across the square doorway of the Ayuntamiento and the crowd swarmed outside against the windows of that building and there was the noise of many people talking, and then I heard a shout and some one said ‘Here comes the first one,’ and it was Don Benito Garcia, the Mayor, and he came out bareheaded walking slowly from the door and down the porch and nothing happened; and he walked between the line of men with the flails and nothing happened. He passed two men, four men, eight men, ten men and nothing happened and he was walking between that line of men, his head up, his fat face gray, his eyes looking ahead and then flickering from side to side and walking steadily. And nothing happened.

“From a balcony some one cried out, ‘ Qué pasa, cobardes? What is the matter, cowards?’ and still Don Benito walked along between the men and nothing happened. Then I saw a man three men down from where I was standing and his face was working and he was biting his lips and his hands were white on his flail. I saw him looking toward Don Benito, watching him come on. And still nothing happened. Then, just before Don Benito came abreast of this man, the man raised his flail high so that it struck the man beside him and smashed a blow at Don Benito that hit him on the side of the head and Don Benito looked at him and the man struck again and shouted, ‘That for you, Cabron ,’ and the blow hit Don Benito in the face and he raised his hands to his face and they beat him until he fell and the man who had struck him first called to others to help him and he pulled on the collar of Don Benito’s shirt and others took hold of his arms and with his face in the dust of the plaza, they dragged him over the walk to the edge of the cliff and threw him over and into the river. And the man who hit him first was kneeling by the edge of the cliff looking over after him and saying, ‘The Cabron! The Cabron! Oh, the Cabron!’ He was a tenant of Don Benito and they had never gotten along together. There had been a dispute about a piece of land by the river that Don Benito had taken from this man and let to another and this man had long hated him. This man did not join the line again but sat by the cliff looking down where Don Benito had fallen.

“After Don Benito no one would come out. There was no noise now in the plaza as all were waiting to see who it was that would come out. Then a drunkard shouted in a great voice, ‘ Qué salga el toro! Let the bull out!’

“Then some one, from by the windows of the Ayuntamiento yelled, ‘They won’t move! They are all praying!’

“Another drunkard shouted, ‘Pull them out. Come on, pull them out. The time for praying is finished.’

“But none came out and then I saw a man coming out of the door.

“It was Don Federico González, who owned the mill and feed store and was a fascist of the first order. He was tall and thin and his hair was brushed over the top of his head from one side to the other to cover a baldness and he wore a nightshirt that was tucked into his trousers. He was barefooted as when he had been taken from his home and he walked ahead of Pablo holding his hands above his head, and Pablo walked behind him with the barrels of his shotgun pressing against the back of Don Federico González until Don Federico entered the double line. But when Pablo left him and returned to the door of the Ayuntamiento , Don Federico could not walk forward, and stood there, his eyes turned up to heaven and his hands reaching up as though they would grasp the sky.

“ ‘He has no legs to walk,’ some one said.

“ ‘What’s the matter, Don Federico? Can’t you walk?’ some one shouted to him. But Don Federico stood there with his hands up and only his lips were moving.

“ ‘Get on,’ Pablo shouted to him from the steps. ‘Walk.’

“Don Federico stood there and could not move. One of the drunkards poked him in the backside with a flail handle and Don Federico gave a quick jump as a balky horse might, but still stood in the same place, his hands up, and his eyes up toward the sky.

“Then the peasant who stood beside me said, ‘This is shameful. I have nothing against him but such a spectacle must terminate.’ So he walked down the line and pushed through to where Don Federico was standing and said, ‘With your permission,’ and hit him a great blow alongside of the head with a club.

“Then Don Federico dropped his hands and put them over the top of his head where the bald place was and with his head bent and covered by his hands, the thin long hairs that covered the bald place escaping through his fingers, he ran fast through the double line with flails falling on his back and shoulders until he fell and those at the end of the line picked him up and swung him over the cliff. Never did he open his mouth from the moment he came out pushed by the shotgun of Pablo. His only difficulty was to move forward. It was as though he had no command of his legs.

“After Don Federico, I saw there was a concentration of the hardest men at the end of the lines by the edge of the cliff and I left there and I went to the Arcade of the Ayuntamiento and pushed aside two drunkards and looked in the window. In the big room of the Ayuntamiento they were all kneeling in a half circle praying and the priest was kneeling and praying with them. Pablo and one named Cuatro Dedos , Four Fingers, a cobbler, who was much with Pablo then, and two others were standing with shotguns and Pablo said to the priest, ‘Who goes now?’ and the priest went on praying and did not answer him.

“ ‘Listen, you,’ Pablo said to the priest in his hoarse voice, ‘Who goes now? Who is ready now?’

“The priest would not speak to Pablo and acted as though he were not there and I could see Pablo was becoming very angry.

“ ‘Let us all go together,’ Don Ricardo Montalvo, who was a land owner, said to Pablo, raising his head and stopping praying to speak.

“ ‘ Qué va ,’ said Pablo. ‘One at a time as you are ready.’

“ ‘Then I go now,’ Don Ricardo said. ‘I’ll never be any more ready.’ The priest blessed him as he spoke and blessed him again as he stood up, without interrupting his praying, and held up a crucifix for Don Ricardo to kiss and Don Ricardo kissed it and then turned and said to Pablo, ‘Nor ever again as ready. You Cabron of the bad milk. Let us go.’

“Don Ricardo was a short man with gray hair and a thick neck and he had a shirt on with no collar. He was bow-legged from much horseback riding. ‘Good-by,’ he said to all those who were kneeling. ‘Don’t be sad. To die is nothing. The only bad thing is to die at the hands of this canalla . Don’t touch me,’ he said to Pablo. ‘Don’t touch me with your shotgun.’

“He walked out of the front of the Ayuntamiento with his gray hair and his small gray eyes and his thick neck looking very short and angry. He looked at the double line of peasants and he spat on the ground. He could spit actual saliva which, in such a circumstance, as you should know, Inglés , is very rare and he said, ‘ Arriba España! Down with the miscalled Republic and I obscenity in the milk of your fathers.’

“So they clubbed him to death very quickly because of the insult, beating him as soon as he reached the first of the men, beating him as he tried to walk with his head up, beating him until he fell and chopping at him with reaping hooks and the sickles, and many men bore him to the edge of the cliff to throw him over and there was blood now on their hands and on their clothing, and now began to be the feeling that these who came out were truly enemies and should be killed.

“Until Don Ricardo came out with that fierceness and calling those insults, many in the line would have given much, I am sure, never to have been in the line. And if any one had shouted from the line, ‘Come, let us pardon the rest of them. Now they have had their lesson,’ I am sure most would have agreed.

“But Don Ricardo with all his bravery did a great disservice to the others. For he aroused the men in the line and where, before, they were performing a duty and with no great taste for it, now they were angry, and the difference was apparent.

“ ‘Let the priest out and the thing will go faster,’ some one shouted.

“ ‘Let out the priest.’

“ ‘We’ve had three thieves, let us have the priest.’

“ ‘Two thieves,’ a short peasant said to the man who had shouted. ‘It was two thieves with Our Lord.’

“ ‘Whose Lord?’ the man said, his face angry and red.

“ ‘In the manner of speaking it is said Our Lord.’

“ ‘He isn’t my Lord; not in joke,’ said the other. ‘And thee hadst best watch thy mouth if thou dost not want to walk between the lines.’

“ ‘I am as good a Libertarian republican as thou,’ the short peasant said. ‘I struck Don Ricardo across the mouth. I struck Don Federico across the back. I missed Don Benito. But I say Our Lord is the formal way of speaking of the man in question and that it was two thieves.’

“ ‘I obscenity in the milk of thy Republicanism. You speak of Don this and Don that.’

“ ‘Here are they so called.’

“ ‘Not by me, the cabrones . And thy Lord— Hi! Here comes a new one!’

“It was then that we saw a disgraceful sight, for the man who walked out of the doorway of the Ayuntamiento was Don Faustino Rivero, the oldest son of his father, Don Celestino Rivero, a landowner. He was tall and his hair was yellow and it was freshly combed back from his forehead for he always carried a comb in his pocket and he had combed his hair now before coming out. He was a great annoyer of girls, and he was a coward, and he had always wished to be an amateur bullfighter. He went much with gypsies and with bullfighters and with bull raisers and delighted to wear the Andalusian costume, but he had no courage and was considered a joke. One time he was announced to appear in an amateur benefit fight for the old people’s home in Avila and to kill a bull from on horseback in the Andalusian style, which he had spent much time practising, and when he had seen the size of the bull that had been substituted for him in place of the little one, weak in the legs, he had picked out himself, he had said he was sick and, some said, put three fingers down his throat to make himself vomit.

“When the lines saw him, they commenced to shout, ‘ Hola , Don Faustino. Take care not to vomit.’

“ ‘Listen to me, Don Faustino. There are beautiful girls over the cliff.’

“ ‘Don Faustino. Wait a minute and we will bring out a bull bigger than the other.’

“And another shouted, ‘Listen to me, Don Faustino. Hast thou ever heard speak of death?’

“Don Faustino stood there, still acting brave. He was still under the impulse that had made him announce to the others that he was going out. It was the same impulse that had made him announce himself for the bullfight. That had made him believe and hope that he could be an amateur matador. Now he was inspired by the example of Don Ricardo and he stood there looking both handsome and brave and he made his face scornful. But he could not speak.

“ ‘Come, Don Faustino,’ some one called from the line. ‘Come, Don Faustino. Here is the biggest bull of all.’

“Don Faustino stood looking out and I think as he looked, that there was no pity for him on either side of the line. Still he looked both handsome and superb; but time was shortening and there was only one direction to go.

“ ‘Don Faustino,’ some one called. ‘What are you waiting for, Don Faustino?’

“ ‘He is preparing to vomit,’ some one said and the lines laughed.

“ ‘Don Faustino,’ a peasant called. ‘Vomit if it will give thee pleasure. To me it is all the same.’

“Then, as we watched, Don Faustino looked along the lines and across the square to the cliff and then when he saw the cliff and the emptiness beyond, he turned quickly and ducked back toward the entrance of the Ayuntamiento .

“All the lines roared and some one shouted in a high voice, ‘Where do you go, Don Faustino? Where do you go?’

“ ‘He goes to throw up,’ shouted another and they all laughed again.

“Then we saw Don Faustino coming out again with Pablo behind him with the shotgun. All of his style was gone now. The sight of the lines had taken away his type and his style and he came out now with Pablo behind him as though Pablo were cleaning a street and Don Faustino was what he was pushing ahead of him. Don Faustino came out now and he was crossing himself and praying and then he put his hands in front of his eyes and walked down the steps toward the lines.

“ ‘Leave him alone,’ some one shouted. ‘Don’t touch him.’

“The lines understood and no one made a move to touch Don Faustino and, with his hands shaking and held in front of his eyes, and with his mouth moving, he walked along between the lines.

“No one said anything and no one touched him and, when he was halfway through the lines, he could go no farther and fell to his knees.

“No one struck him. I was walking along parallel to the line to see what happened to him and a peasant leaned down and lifted him to his feet and said, ‘Get up, Don Faustino, and keep walking. The bull has not yet come out.’

“Don Faustino could not walk alone and the peasant in a black smock helped him on one side and another peasant in a black smock and herdsman’s boots helped him on the other, supporting him by the arms and Don Faustino walking along between the lines with his hands over his eyes, his lips never quiet, and his yellow hair slicked on his head and shining in the sun, and as he passed the peasants would say, ‘Don Faustino, buen provecho . Don Faustino, that you should have a good appetite,’ and others said, ‘Don Faustino, A sus ordenes. Don Faustino at your orders,’ and one, who had failed at bullfighting himself, said, ‘Don Faustino. Matador, a sus ordenes ,’ and another said, ‘Don Faustino, there are beautiful girls in heaven, Don Faustino.’ And they walked Don Faustino through the lines, holding him close on either side, holding him up as he walked, with him with his hands over his eyes. But he must have looked through his fingers, because when they came to the edge of the cliff with him, he knelt again, throwing himself down and clutching the ground and holding to the grass, saying, ‘No. No. No. Please. NO. Please. Please. No. No.’

“Then the peasants who were with him and the others, the hard ones of the end of the line, squatted quickly behind him as he knelt, and gave him a rushing push and he was over the edge without ever having been beaten and you heard him crying loud and high as he fell.

“It was then I knew that the lines had become cruel and it was first the insults of Don Ricardo and second the cowardice of Don Faustino that had made them so.

“ ‘Let us have another,’ a peasant called out and another peasant slapped him on the back and said, ‘Don Faustino! What a thing! Don Faustino!’

“ ‘He’s seen the big bull now,’ another said. ‘Throwing up will never help him, now.’

“ ‘In my life,’ another peasant said, ‘in my life I’ve never seen a thing like Don Faustino.’

“ ‘There are others,’ another peasant said. ‘Have patience. Who knows what we may yet see?’

“ ‘There may be giants and dwarfs,’ the first peasant said. ‘There may be Negroes and rare beasts from Africa. But for me never, never will there be anything like Don Faustino. But let’s have another one! Come on. Let’s have another one!’

“The drunkards were handing around bottles of anis and cognac that they had looted from the bar of the club of the fascists, drinking them down like wine, and many of the men in the lines were beginning to be a little drunk, too, from drinking after the strong emotion of Don Benito, Don Federico, Don Ricardo and especially Don Faustino. Those who did not drink from the bottles of liquor were drinking from leather wineskins that were passed about and one handed a wineskin to me and I took a long drink, letting the wine run cool down my throat from the leather bota for I was very thirsty, too.

“ ‘To kill gives much thirst,’ the man with the wineskin said to me.

“ ‘ Qué va ,’ I said. ‘Hast thou killed?’

“ ‘We have killed four,’ he said, proudly. ‘Not counting the civiles . Is it true that thee killed one of the civiles , Pilar?’

“ ‘Not one,’ I said. ‘I shot into the smoke when the wall fell, as did the others. That is all.’

“ ‘Where got thee the pistol, Pilar?’

“ ‘From Pablo. Pablo gave it to me after he killed the civiles .’

“ ‘Killed he them with this pistol?’

“ ‘With no other,’ I said. ‘And then he armed me with it.’

“ ‘Can I see it, Pilar? Can I hold it?’

“ ‘Why not, man?’ I said, and I took it out from under the rope and handed it to him. But I was wondering why no one else had come out and just then who should come out but Don Guillermo Martín from whose store the flails, the herdsman’s clubs, and the wooden pitchforks had been taken. Don Guillermo was a fascist but otherwise there was nothing against him.

“It is true he paid little to those who made the flails but he charged little for them too and if one did not wish to buy flails from Don Guillermo, it was possible to make them for nothing more than the cost of the wood and the leather. He had a rude way of speaking and he was undoubtedly a fascist and a member of their club and he sat at noon and at evening in the cane chairs of their club to read El Debate , to have his shoes shined, and to drink vermouth and seltzer and eat roasted almonds, dried shrimps, and anchovies. But one does not kill for that, and I am sure if it had not been for the insults of Don Ricardo Montalvo and the lamentable spectacle of Don Faustino, and the drinking consequent on the emotion of them and the others, some one would have shouted, ‘That Don Guillermo should go in peace. We have his flails. Let him go.’

“Because the people of this town are as kind as they can be cruel and they have a natural sense of justice and a desire to do that which is right. But cruelty had entered into the lines and also drunkenness or the beginning of drunkenness and the lines were not as they were when Don Benito had come out. I do not know how it is in other countries, and no one cares more for the pleasure of drinking than I do, but in Spain drunkenness, when produced by other elements than wine, is a thing of great ugliness and the people do things that they would not have done. Is it not so in your country, Inglés ?”

“It is so,” Robert Jordan said. “When I was seven years old and going with my mother to attend a wedding in the state of Ohio at which I was to be the boy of a pair of boy and girl who carried flowers——”

“Did you do that?” asked Maria. “How nice!”

“In this town a Negro was hanged to a lamp post and later burned. It was an arc light. A light which lowered from the post to the pavement. And he was hoisted, first by the mechanism which was used to hoist the arc light but this broke——”

“A Negro,” Maria said. “How barbarous!”

“Were the people drunk?” asked Pilar. “Were they drunk thus to burn a Negro?”

“I do not know,” Robert Jordan said. “Because I saw it only looking out from under the blinds of a window in the house which stood on the corner where the arc light was. The street was full of people and when they lifted the Negro up for the second time——”

“If you had only seven years and were in a house, you could not tell if they were drunk or not,” Pilar said.

“As I said, when they lifted the Negro up for the second time, my mother pulled me away from the window, so I saw no more,” Robert Jordan said. “But since I have had experiences which demonstrate that drunkenness is the same in my country. It is ugly and brutal.”

“You were too young at seven,” Maria said. “You were too young for such things. I have never seen a Negro except in a circus. Unless the Moors are Negroes.”

“Some are Negroes and some are not,” Pilar said. “I can talk to you of the Moors.”

“Not as I can,” Maria said. “Nay, not as I can.”

“Don’t speak of such things,” Pilar said. “It is unhealthy. Where were we?”

“Speaking of the drunkenness of the lines,” Robert Jordan said. “Go on.”

“It is not fair to say drunkenness,” Pilar said. “For, yet, they were a long way from drunkenness. But already there was a change in them, and when Don Guillermo came out, standing straight, near-sighted, gray-headed, of medium height, with a shirt with a collar button but no collar, standing there and crossing himself once and looking ahead, but seeing little without his glasses, but walking forward well and calmly, he was an appearance to excite pity. But some one shouted from the line, ‘Here, Don Guillermo. Up here, Don Guillermo. In this direction. Here we all have your products.’

“They had had such success joking at Don Faustino that they could not see, now, that Don Guillermo was a different thing, and if Don Guillermo was to be killed, he should be killed quickly and with dignity.

“ ‘Don Guillermo,’ another shouted. ‘Should we send to the house for thy spectacles?’

“Don Guillermo’s house was no house, since he had not much money and was only a fascist to be a snob and to console himself that he must work for little, running a wooden-implement shop. He was a fascist, too, from the religiousness of his wife which he accepted as his own due to his love for her. He lived in an apartment in the building three houses down the square and when Don Guillermo stood there, looking near-sightedly at the lines, the double lines he knew he must enter, a woman started to scream from the balcony of the apartment where he lived. She could see him from the balcony and she was his wife.

“ ‘Guillermo,’ she cried. ‘Guillermo. Wait and I will be with thee.’

“Don Guillermo turned his head toward where the shouting came from. He could not see her. He tried to say something but he could not. Then he waved his hand in the direction the woman had called from and started to walk between the lines.

“ ‘Guillermo!’ she cried. ‘Guillermo! Oh, Guillermo!’ She was holding her hands on the rail of the balcony and shaking back and forth. ‘Guillermo!’

“Don Guillermo waved his hand again toward the noise and walked into the lines with his head up and you would not have known what he was feeling except for the color of his face.

“Then some drunkard yelled, ‘Guillermo!’ from the lines, imitating the high cracked voice of his wife and Don Guillermo rushed toward the man, blindly, with tears now running down his cheeks and the man hit him hard across the face with his flail and Don Guillermo sat down from the force of the blow and sat there crying, but not from fear, while the drunkards beat him and one drunkard jumped on top of him, astride his shoulders, and beat him with a bottle. After this many of the men left the lines and their places were taken by the drunkards who had been jeering and saying things in bad taste through the windows of the Ayuntamiento .

“I myself had felt much emotion at the shooting of the guardia civil by Pablo,” Pilar said. “It was a thing of great ugliness, but I had thought if this is how it must be, this is how it must be, and at least there was no cruelty, only the depriving of life which, as we all have learned in these years, is a thing of ugliness but also a necessity to do if we are to win, and to preserve the Republic.

“When the square had been closed off and the lines formed, I had admired and understood it as a conception of Pablo, although it seemed to me to be somewhat fantastic and that it would be necessary for all that was to be done to be done in good taste if it were not to be repugnant. Certainly if the fascists were to be executed by the people, it was better for all the people to have a part in it, and I wished to share the guilt as much as any, just as I hoped to share in the benefits when the town should be ours. But after Don Guillermo I felt a feeling of shame and distaste, and with the coming of the drunkards and the worthless ones into the lines, and the abstention of those who left the lines as a protest after Don Guillermo, I wished that I might disassociate myself altogether from the lines, and I walked away, across the square, and sat down on a bench under one of the big trees that gave shade there.

“Two peasants from the lines walked over, talking together, and one of them called to me, ‘What passes with thee, Pilar?’

“ ‘Nothing, man,’ I told him.

“ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Speak. What passes?’

“ ‘I think that I have a belly-full,’ I told him.

“ ‘Us, too,’ he said and they both sat down on the bench. One of them had a leather wineskin and he handed it to me.

“ ‘Rinse out thy mouth,’ he said and the other said, going on with the talking they had been engaged in, ‘The worst is that it will bring bad luck. Nobody can tell me that such things as the killing of Don Guillermo in that fashion will not bring bad luck.’

“Then the other said, ‘If it is necessary to kill them all, and I am not convinced of that necessity, let them be killed decently and without mockery.’

“ ‘Mockery is justified in the case of Don Faustino,’ the other said. ‘Since he was always a farcer and was never a serious man. But to mock such a serious man as Don Guillermo is beyond all right.’

“ ‘I have a belly-full,’ I told him, and it was literally true because I felt an actual sickness in all of me inside and a sweating and a nausea as though I had swallowed bad sea food.

“ ‘Then, nothing,’ the one peasant said. ‘We will take no further part in it. But I wonder what happens in the other towns.’

“ ‘They have not repaired the telephone wires yet,’ I said. ‘It is a lack that should remedied.’

“ ‘Clearly,’ he said. ‘Who knows but what we might be better employed putting the town into a state of defense than massacring people with this slowness and brutality.’

“ ‘I will go to speak with Pablo,’ I told them and I stood up from the bench and started toward the arcade that led to the door of the Ayuntamiento from where the lines spread across the square. The lines now were neither straight nor orderly and there was much and very grave drunkenness. Two men had fallen down and lay on their backs in the middle of the square and were passing a bottle back and forth between them. One would take a drink and then shout, ‘ Viva la Anarquia! ’ lying on his back and shouting as though he were a madman. He had a red-and-black handkerchief around his neck. The other shouted, ‘ Viva la Libertad! ’ and kicked his feet in the air and then bellowed, ‘ Viva la Libertad! ’ again. He had a red-and-black handkerchief too and he waved it in one hand and waved the bottle with the other.

“A peasant who had left the lines and now stood in the shade of the arcade looked at them in disgust and said, ‘They should shout, “Long live drunkenness.” That’s all they believe in.’

“ ‘They don’t believe even in that,’ another peasant said. ‘Those neither understand nor believe in anything.’

“Just then, one of the drunkards got to his feet and raised both arms with his fists clenched over his head and shouted, ‘Long live Anarchy and Liberty and I obscenity in the milk of the Republic!’

“The other drunkard who was still lying on his back, took hold of the ankle of the drunkard who was shouting and rolled over, so that the shouting drunkard fell with him, and they rolled over together and then sat up and the one who had pulled the other down put his arm around the shouter’s neck and then handed the shouter a bottle and kissed the red-and-black handkerchief he wore and they both drank together.

“Just then, a yelling went up from the lines and, looking up the arcade, I could not see who it was that was coming out because the man’s head did not show above the heads of those crowded about the door of the Ayuntamiento . All I could see was that some one was being pushed out by Pablo and Cuatro Dedos with their shotguns but I could not see who it was and I moved on close toward the lines where they were packed against the door to try to see.

“There was much pushing now and the chairs and the tables of the fascists’ café had been overturned except for one table on which a drunkard was lying with his head hanging down and his mouth open and I picked up a chair and set it against one of the pillars and mounted on it so that I could see over the heads of the crowd.

“The man who was being pushed out by Pablo and Cuatro Dedos was Don Anastasio Rivas, who was an undoubted fascist and the fattest man in the town. He was a grain buyer and the agent for several insurance companies and he also loaned money at high rates of interest. Standing on the chair, I saw him walk down the steps and toward the lines, his fat neck bulging over the back of the collar band of his shirt, and his bald head shining in the sun, but he never entered them because there was a shout, not as of different men shouting, but of all of them. It was an ugly noise and was the cry of the drunken lines all yelling together and the lines broke with the rush of men toward him and I saw Don Anastasio throw himself down with his hands over his head and then you could not see him for the men piled on top of him. And when the men got up from him, Don Anastasio was dead from his head being beaten against the stone flags of the paving of the arcade and there were no more lines but only a mob.

“ ‘We’re going in,’ they commenced to shout. ‘We’re going in after them.’

“ ‘He’s too heavy to carry,’ a man kicked at the body of Don Anastasio, who was lying there on his face. ‘Let him stay there.’

“ ‘Why should we lug that tub of tripe to the cliff? Let him lie there.’

“ ‘We are going to enter and finish with them inside,’ a man shouted. ‘We’re going in.’

“ ‘Why wait all day in the sun?’ another yelled. ‘Come on. Let us go.’

“The mob was now pressing into the arcade. They were shouting and pushing and they made a noise now like an animal and they were all shouting ‘Open up! Open up! Open up!’ for the guards had shut the doors of the Ayuntamiento when the lines broke.

“Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in there it was as it had been before. The priest was standing, and those who were left were kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying. Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor’s chair with his shotgun slung over his back. His legs were hanging down from the table and he was rolling a cigarette. Cuatro Dedos was sitting in the Mayor’s chair with his feet on the table and he was smoking a cigarette. All the guards were sitting in different chairs of the administration, holding their guns. The key to the big door was on the table beside Pablo.

“The mob was shouting, ‘Open up! Open up! Open up!’ as though it were a chant and Pablo was sitting there as though he did not hear them. He said something to the priest but I could not hear what he said for the noise of the mob.

“The priest, as before, did not answer him but kept on praying. With many people pushing me, I moved the chair close against the wall, shoving it ahead of me as they shoved me from behind. I stood on the chair with my face close against the bars of the window and held on by the bars. A man climbed on the chair too and stood with his arms around mine, holding the wider bars.

“ ‘The chair will break,’ I said to him.

“ ‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘Look at them. Look at them pray.’

“His breath on my neck smelled like the smell of the mob, sour, like vomit on paving stones and the smell of drunkenness, and then he put his mouth against the opening in the bars with his head over my shoulder, and shouted, ‘Open up! Open!’ and it was as though the mob were on my back as a devil is on your back in a dream.

“Now the mob was pressed tight against the door so that those in front were being crushed by all the others who were pressing and from the square a big drunkard in a black smock with a red-and-black handkerchief around his neck ran and threw himself against the press of the mob and fell forward onto the pressing men and then stood up and backed away and then ran forward again and threw himself against the backs of those men who were pushing, shouting, ‘Long live me and long live Anarchy.’

“As I watched, this man turned away from the crowd and went and sat down and drank from a bottle and then, while he was sitting down, he saw Don Anastasio, who was still lying face down on the stones, but much trampled now, and the drunkard got up and went over to Don Anastasio and leaned over and poured out of the bottle onto the head of Don Anastasio and onto his clothes, and then he took a matchbox out of his pocket and lit several matches, trying to make a fire with Don Anastasio. But the wind was blowing hard now and it blew the matches out and after a little the big drunkard sat there by Don Anastasio, shaking his head and drinking out of the bottle and every once in a while, leaning over and patting Don Anastasio on the shoulders of his dead body.

“All this time the mob was shouting to open up and the man on the chair with me was holding tight to the bars of the window and shouting to open up until it deafened me with his voice roaring past my ear and his breath foul on me and I looked away from watching the drunkard who had been trying to set fire to Don Anastasio and into the hall of the Ayuntamiento again; and it was just as it had been. They were still praying as they had been, the men all kneeling, with their shirts open, some with their heads down, others with their heads up, looking toward the priest and toward the crucifix that he held, and the priest praying fast and hard and looking out over their heads, and in back of them Pablo, with his cigarette now lighted, was sitting there on the table swinging his legs, his shotgun slung over his back, and he was playing with the key.

“I saw Pablo speak to the priest again, leaning forward from the table and I could not hear what he said for the shouting. But the priest did not answer him but went on praying. Then a man stood up from among the half circle of those who were praying and I saw he wanted to go out. It was Don José Castro, whom every one called Don Pepe, a confirmed fascist, and a dealer in horses, and he stood up now small, neat-looking even unshaven and wearing a pyjama top tucked into a pair of gray-striped trousers. He kissed the crucifix and the priest blessed him and he stood up and looked at Pablo and jerked his head toward the door.

“Pablo shook his head and went on smoking. I could see Don Pepe say something to Pablo but could not hear it. Pablo did not answer; he simply shook his head again and nodded toward the door.

“Then I saw Don Pepe look full at the door and realized that he had not known it was locked. Pablo showed him the key and he stood looking at it an instant and then he turned and went and knelt down again. I saw the priest look around at Pablo and Pablo grinned at him and showed him the key and the priest seemed to realize for the first time that the door was locked and he seemed as though he started to shake his head, but he only inclined it and went back to praying.

“I do not know how they could not have understood the door was locked unless it was that they were so concentrated on their praying and their own thoughts; but now they certainly understood and they understood the shouting and they must have known now that all was changed. But they remained the same as before.

“By now the shouting was so that you could hear nothing and the drunkard who stood on the chair with me shook with his hands at the bars and yelled, ‘Open up! Open up!’ until he was hoarse.

“I watched Pablo speak to the priest again and the priest did not answer. Then I saw Pablo unsling his shotgun and he reached over and tapped the priest on the shoulder with it. The priest paid no attention to him and I saw Pablo shake his head. Then he spoke over his shoulder to Cuatro Dedos and Cuatro Dedos spoke to the other guards and they all stood up and walked back to the far end of the room and stood there with their shotguns.

“I saw Pablo say something to Cuatro Dedos and he moved over two tables and some benches and the guards stood behind them with their shotguns. It made a barricade in that corner of the room. Pablo leaned over and tapped the priest on the shoulder again with the shotgun and the priest did not pay any attention to him but I saw Don Pepe watching him while the others paid no attention but went on praying. Pablo shook his head and, seeing Don Pepe looking at him, he shook his head at Don Pepe and showed him the key, holding it up in his hand. Don Pepe understood and he dropped his head and commenced to pray very fast.

“Pablo swung his legs down from the table and walked around it to the big chair of the Mayor on the raised platform behind the long council table. He sat down in it and rolled himself a cigarette, all the time watching the fascists who were praying with the priest. You could not see any expression on his face at all. The key was on the table in front of him. It was a big key of iron, over a foot long. Then Pablo called to the guards something I could not hear and one guard went down to the door. I could see them all praying faster than ever and I knew that they all knew now.

“Pablo said something to the priest but the priest did not answer. Then Pablo leaned forward, picked up the key and tossed it underhand to the guard at the door. The guard caught it and Pablo smiled at him. Then the guard put the key in the door, turned it, and pulled the door toward him, ducking behind it as the mob rushed in.

“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 hall 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, Inglés . 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 busses 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, Pilar,’ 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, Inglés ? 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.’

“ ‘ Qué 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 Inglés 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 the Inglés . 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.”