For Whom the Bell Tolls (18 page)

“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 be 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!' 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.