For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway [48]
“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 Martin, 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