For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway [103]
“Pilar,” Fernando said. “Is there more of the stew?”
“Oh, shut up,” the woman said. But Maria took Fernando’s bowl over to the big pot set back from the edge of the fire and ladled into it. She brought it over to the table and set it down and then patted Fernando on the shoulder as he bent to eat. She stood for a moment beside him, her hand on his shoulder. But Fernando did not look up. He was devoting himself to the stew.
Agustín stood beside the fire. The others were seated. Pilar sat at the table opposite Robert Jordan.
“Now, Inglés,” she said, “you have seen how he is.”
“What will he do?” Robert Jordan asked.
“Anything,” the woman looked down at the table. “Anything. He is capable of doing anything.”
“Where is the automatic rifle?” Robert Jordan asked.
“There in the corner wrapped in the blanket,” Primitivo said. “Do you want it?”
“Later,” Robert Jordan said. “I wished to know where it is.”
“It is there,” Primitivo said. “I brought it in and I have wrapped it in my blanket to keep the action dry. The pans are in that sack.”
“He would not do that,” Pilar said. “He would not do anything with the máquina.”
“I thought you said he would do anything.”
“He might,” she said. “But he has no practice with the máquina. He could toss in a bomb. That is more his style.”
“It is an idiocy and a weakness not to have killed him,” the gypsy said. He had taken no part in any of the talk all evening. “Last night Roberto should have killed him.”
“Kill him,” Pilar said. Her big face was dark and tired looking. “I am for it now.”
“I was against it,” Agustín said. He stood in front of the fire, his long arms hanging by his sides, his cheeks, stubble-shadowed below the cheekbones, hollow in the firelight. “Now I am for it,” he said. “He is poisonous now and he would like to see us all destroyed.”
“Let all speak,” Pilar said and her voice was tired. “Thou, Andrés?”
“Matarlo,” the brother with the dark hair growing far down in the point on his forehead said and nodded his head.
“Eladio?”
“Equally,” the other brother said. “To me he seems to constitute a great danger. And he serves for nothing.”
“Primitivo?”
“Equally.”
“Fernando?”
“Could we not hold him as a prisoner?” Fernando asked.
“Who would look after a prisoner?” Primitivo said. “It would take two men to look after a prisoner and what would we do with him in the end?”
“We could sell him to the fascists,” the gypsy said.
“None of that,” Agustín said. “None of that filthiness.”
“It was only an idea,” Rafael, the gypsy, said. “It seems to me that the facciosos would be happy to have him.”
“Leave it alone,” Agustín said. “That is filthy.”
“No filthier than Pablo,” the gypsy justified himself.
“One filthiness does not justify another,” Agustín said. “Well, that is all. Except for the old man and the Inglés.”
“They are not in it,” Pilar said. “He has not been their leader.”
“One moment,” Fernando said. “I have not finished.”
“Go ahead,” Pilar said. “Talk until he comes back. Talk until he rolls a hand grenade under that blanket and blows this all up. Dynamite and all.”
“I think that you exaggerate, Pilar,” Fernando said. “I do not think that he has any such conception.”
“I do not think so either,” Agustín said. “Because that would blow the wine up too and he will be back in a little while to the wine.”
“Why not turn him over to El Sordo and let El Sordo sell him to the fascists?” Rafael suggested. “You could blind him and he would be easy to handle.”
“Shut up,” Pilar said. “I feel something very justified against thee too when thou talkest.”
“The fascists would pay nothing for him anyway,” Primitivo said. “Such things have been tried by others and they pay nothing. They will shoot thee too.”
“I believe that blinded he could be sold for something,” Rafael said.
“Shut up,” Pilar said. “Speak of blinding again and you can go with the other.”
“But, he, Pablo, blinded the guardia civil who was wounded,” the gypsy insisted. “You have forgotten that?”
“Close thy mouth,