For Whom The Bell Tolls

"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?"

"Ay," said Joaquin and shook his head. "Don't talk to me of that. Comrade Dynamiter, what planes were those?"

"Heinkel one eleven bombers. Heinkel and Fiat pursuit," Robert Jordan told him.

"What were the big ones with the low wings?"

"Heinkel one elevens."

"By any names they are as bad," Joaquin said. "But I am delaying you. I will take you to the commander."

"The commander?" Pilar asked.

Joaquin nodded seriously. "I like it better than 'chief," he said. "It is more military."